
Class ?>5 ^^ 

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COPYRIGHT DEPOSrr. 



How to Grow 100 Bushels of 
Corn Per Acre on Worn Soil 

By WILLIAM C. SMITH 

Author of 
The Business of Farming 

Pronounced, the world over, by men who know, to 
be the most common-sense, practical and interesting 
farm book ever written in any age of agricultural 
history. 

Thousands have said that it should be in the hands 
of every one interested in the soil. 

And some have even said that it is worth more 
to the cause of agriculture than any book upon 
the subject that has ever been written, unless it be 
Mr. Smith's new book upon The Business of Farming. 

TSiet, $1.25 
STEWART & KIDD COMPANY, 

PUBLISHERS CINCINNATI 




"THE FARM1:R C)1" IO-MORROW." 

Till' P>rightest Prospect tor the Business of Fanning. 

"And a little child shall lead them." 



THE 

BUSINESS OF FARMING 



BY ^J~ 

WILLIAM C: SMITH 

OF INDIANA • 

Author of "How to Grow 100 Bushels of 

Com Per Acre on Worn Soils" and 

"The Book of Vetch." 



'TIMES are propitious for agri- 
cultural boolcs written simply 
and understandingly, free from 
the technicality the average lay- 
man does not understand. .*. .". 



CINCINNATI 

STEWART & KIDD COMPANY 

1914 



.36 



CoPYBIGHTj 1914, BY 

STEWART & KIDD COMPANY 

All Rights Reserved 

COPYBIGHT IN EkGLAND 



JUN--4I9I4 

©CI,A374323 






DEDICATORY 
To the earnest company of thoughtful 
humanity-loving men and women who are 
working with might and main to bring about 
better methods of farming and farm living, 
by which the fertility of our soils may be 
increased and maintained, and that our 
farms may have better homes and home 
surroundings, this volume is dedicated. 





SOME EEFLECTIONS 

)USINESS is nothing more than being in- 
dustriously engaged in the affairs of some 
occupation from which we derive our sup- 
port. 

^AEMINGr is our biggest business. It feeds 
the nations of the world and is the basis of 
all prosperity and happiness, and therefore 
should receive our biggest consideration, and be 
safeguarded by our best brains and legislation. 

fN pioneer days when farming implements 
and machinery were of the crudest kind, re- 
quiring muscle to use them, brawn, more 
than brains, was needed in the business of farm- 
ing, in order to rescue soils from the wilderness 
of timber and prairie growth. 

I'M these days of worn and worn-out soils and 
the abandoned farm, with the most improved 
labor-saving farm machinery, the business 
of farming needs brains more than brawn, that 
our soils may be rescued from the wilderness of 
wasted fertility that has stifled them. 

ALTHOUGH the business of farming requires 
in its operations constant industry and the 
exercise of thought and study in its every 
detail, in order to make it successful, yet it af- 
fords greater opportunities for the best and right 
living, and the achievement of happiness, than 
any other business. 




A JUSTIFICATION 

Some Biblical writer said that of the making 
of books there is no end. We wonder what he 
would say if he lived in this age and saw the pub- 
lication of books, in number almost as the sands 
of the sea. 

In the face of this book multiplicity we can offer 
no excuse for the publication of this volume fur- 
ther than the fact that the importance of the sub- 
ject treated at this time so bears upon the happi- 
ness and prosperity of our people and nation, that 
it becomes an impelling motive for its publication. 

We do not make the claim that for this volume 
we have even written a truth not yet uttered, but 
believe we have placed an emphasis upon many 
truths pertaining to the business of farming that 
has not been previously placed, which, according 
to Drummond, is ample justification for perpetra- 
ting another book upon a long suffering public. 

In this volume we have simply recorded the 
knowledge gathered from long experience, careful 
observation, and intense study of the subjects 
treated, and we have attempted to state this knowl- 
edge thus gathered in a simple, untechnical way, 
so that any one can read, be interested, entertained 
and profited thereby. 

Bacon said, ' ' Some books are to be tasted ; oth- 
ers swallowed; and some few to be chewed and 
digested." We are hoping that this shall prove 

9 



10 A JUSTIFICATION 

to be one of the books that shall be *' chewed and 
digested," for the subject treated is the very 
foundation of the fabric of our society, as the 
stability and progress of our every institution and 
business depends upon the prosperity of the busi- 
ness of farming. 

When God, in the beginning of the world, made 
farming the first business. He gave it a setting not 
given to any other business. He gave as its 
foundation a soil full of the mystery of plant and 
microscopical life, where His wonders are revealed 
to a greater extent than in the incomprehensible 
magnitude of the region of the stars. And there 
springs from this soil the plant and tree growth 
producing the myriads of products of varied hue 
that delight the senses and sustain the life of 
man. 

All manner of animal and bird life is about 
to contribute to the farmer's enjoyment and use 
in a thousand ways. 

The seasons were created and set in perpetual 
motion that seed time and harvest might come at 
certain appointed times. The clouds, the rain 
and sunshine come also in their appointed place, 
assuring us of God's promise that seed time and 
harvest shall never fail. 

Over and about the business of farming God 
has set the open sky so wonderfully mystifying 
to the mind, and delightful to the eye, and the 
birds of beautiful and somber plumage, so full of 
song, that cheer and delight the soul. Spring with 
its awakened life, Summer with its growth in full 
swing, Autumn with its maturity and incompar- 
able coloring, and Winter with its sleeping life 



A JUSTIFICATION 11 

and mantle of snow, are exemplified in all their 
glory and mystery to those who engage in the busi- 
ness of farming. 

Therefore, if the author has presented some- 
thing in this volume that will cause some of those 
who are engaged in the business of farming to 
feel so keenly the character and importance of 
their business that they will put forth the greater 
effort to make it measure up to its intended 
standard, he will feel rewarded for his efforts, 
and justified in publishing this volume. 

William C. Smith. 
Delphi, Indiana, January, 1914. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Dedicatory 5 

Some Reflections 7 

A Justification 9 

CHAPTER I. 
Historical R68um6 of the Business of Farming 19 

CHAPTER II. 
The Discouragements and Vicissitudes of the Business of 

Farming 38 

CHAPTER III. 
Hindrances to the Business of Farming 46 

CHAPTER IV. 
Our Worn Soils the Greatest Menace to the Business of Farm- 
ing, and How to Restore Them 66 

CHAPTER V. 
The Profits of the Business of Farming 82 

CHAPTER VI. 
Equipments Necessary for Carrying on the Business of 

Farming 89 

CHAPTER VII. 
Necessary Preparations for the Business of Farming 101 

CHAPTER VIII. 
Putting the Soil in Condition for the Carrying on of the 

Business of Farming Ill 

CHAPTER IX. 
Plowing 125 

CHAPTER X. 
The Preparation of the Soil After Plowing for the Seed Bed. . 143 



TABLE OP CONTENTS 

nrAPTER XI. PAGE 

Seeds, Seed Selection and Socd Wanting 149 

CHAPTER XII 
Other Aids to the BuHincss of Farming 160 

CHAPTER XIII. 
The By-ProdnctH of tlic Farm and Their Utilization in a 

Business Way 185 

CHAPTER XIV. 
Carp of FariM Machinery 198 

CHAPTER XV. 
The Importance of Live Stock in the Business of Farming. . . . 203 

CHAPTER XVI. 
Real Cost of Operation, Siiippin^' and Marketing Products. . . . 216 

CHAPTER XVII. 
Farm Credits or Financing the Farm 224 

CHAPTER XVIII. 
The Conservation of Health and Human Life on the Farm. . . . 232 

CHAPTER XIX. 
Farm Bookkeeping 239 

CHAPTER XX. 
The Retired Farmer and the Farmer as an Officeholder and 

City Business Man 244 

CHAPTER XXI 

Relation of Religion to Farm Life 256 

CHAPTER XXII 
The Country Graveyard 262 

CHAPTER XXin. 
Home Biiildinp and the Farm 266 

(CHAPTER XXIV. 
Back to the Land 278 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

FACINQ 
PAGE 

Frontispiece 

A Brawny Pioneer of the Timber Belt 19 "^ 

The Simple Farm Home amid Pleasant Surroundings 38 ^ 

Showing Results of Green Manuring with Rye upon Buck- 
wheat Grown on Northern Michigan Sand Lands 4R 

First Crop of Alfalfa on Worn Soil 66 ^■ 

A Poor Way to Conserve Manure 72 ^ 

A Green Manuring and Cover Crop among the Corn Stalks, 
all for the Soil's Compensation for Growing Crops for 
Its Owner 77 " 

A Lesson in Pictures 82 ► 

A Piece of Farm Machinery Sowing Good Seed upon Good 
Ground Goodly Tilled by Good Equipments 89 

Tractor Plowing Demonstration for Benefit of Agricultural 
Class of Delphi, Indiana, High School 101 

How Shall We Educate Her ? 106 > 

Rescuing Soils from Timber Growth Ill 

The Importance of a Cover Crop upon Soils Subject to Wash- 
ing 118 

Good Equipments for Plowing 125 '' 

A Medium Size Gasoline Tractor 129 • 

Soil Packing by a Tractor 135 , 

An Example of Three-Inch Plowing. Plow Sole not Broken 
up 138 i 

The Good Tillage Implements 143 r 

Like Will not Always Produce Like 149 - 

The Good Seed 153 

Possibilities of Scientific Farming Education Put into Prac- 
tice 160. 

An Example of the Law of Service 166 "^ 

Results of Bacteria Inoculation 172 ^ 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

FACING 
PAGE 

The Silo 180 »^ 

A Farm By-Product too Long Wasted and Destroyed upon 
American Farms 185 v 

Good Farm Machinery in Use upon Well Prepared Soil for 
the Seed Bed 198 i^ 

"The Mortgage Lifter" 203 ■ 

The more Elaborate Expensive Hog House with Cement Floor 207 » 

The Simple Cheap Hog House for the Brood Sow 211 >- 

Plowing with Small Gasoline Tractor 216 \/ 

Another Lesson in Pictures 224 ^ 

An Old Time Worn-Out Farm Being Restored by Modern 

Scientific Farming 232 J 

The Horseless and Canvasless Binder, Introducing Another 

Era of Improved Farm Machinery 239 ^ 

The Cover Crop "out in the Orchard where the Children 

Used to Play" 244 «/ 

The Fruit of Vine and Tree and of Varied Hue" 256 w' 

The Neglected Country Graveyard 262 »/ 

The Old Farm Home at the Turn of the Road 266 «/ 

It Will Soon Be "Good Old Watermelon Time" 271 / 

The Comfortable Country Residence of a City Doctor Who / 

Went "Back to the Farm and Made Good". / 278 ^ 



THE BUSINESS OF FARMING 




rLMl!l':R BELT. 

succeeded 



A ISRAWNV 

>el()ii.u,cd to the "Farm As^e of I'.rawn" wliich \va 
by the a.ne of lini)ni\ed l-'arm Macliinery. 

W'lieii tile liill i)f tnil was steepest, 
When tlie finest-froun was deepest, 

Poor, Init young, you hastened here; 
Came where sohd hope was clieapest — 

Came — a pioneer. 
Made the western jungles view 

Civilization's charms; 
Snatched a liome for yours and you, 

From the lean tree-arms. 
Toil had never cause to doubt you — 

Progress' path you helped to clear ; 
But To-day forgets about you, 
And tlio worl<] rides on without you — 

Sleep, old pioneer ! 

— Wii.i, Caki.f.tox. 



THE 
BUSINESS OF FARMING 

CHAPTER I 

HISTOEICAL. RESUME OF THE BUSINESS OF FARMING 

FARMING is our biggest business. It is the 
great heart of the business system that 
pumps the rich red blood of commercial activity 
through the veins and arteries of the world's 
business. Soil is the chief item of raw material 
from which the finished products of this business 
is made. 

The 1912 finished products of the business of 
farming, wrought from the raw material of the 
soil, amounted to the staggering sum of ten bil- 
lion of dollars. And yet this vast wealth was pro- 
duced by a business the most poorly organized and 
conducted, the least conserved, and the most 
neglected of any existing business of this age. 

At a cost of fabulous sums, methods have been 
developed and consummated for perfected ma- 
chinery, better distribution, and business systems 
by which every other business on earth may be 
successfully operated. 

Without such methods and systems not a single 
modern business could have reached its present 
magnitude or greatness. 

19 



20 THE BUSINESS OF FARMING 

We are living in the world's greatest commer- 
cial age. The iron rails of the roads of commerce 
stretch out, encircle, and twine about the globe 
like threads of twine. 

Titanic ships like as a multitude plow the waters 
of the oceans and seas, carrying the people and 
commerce of nations. 

Cities, numberless as the sands of the sea, have 
sprung up in a span of years, mightier in girth 
and magnitude than any of the real or fabled 
cities of antiquity or of any ever dreamed or 
imagined. 

Our nation is cutting a mighty canal through a 
continent, deep and wide enough for the sailing 
of the largest ship of commerce, and is turning 
the failures of a generation ago into success. 

Mills and factories of staggering dimensions 
whose chimneys belch out clouds of smoke that 
shut out from the world the light of the King of 
Day, are building and turning out for man's use 
and enjoyment, those wonderful mechanisms and 
inventions of the modern master minds that out- 
class the seven ancient wonders of the world. 

Almost instantly we communicate with and talk 
to our friends, leagues away, through the tele- 
graph, wireless and telephone. 

The very intonation of our voices is recorded 
upon the phonographic scrolls, to be preserved 
that we may converse in our own characteristic 
tones for ages after our bodies shall have been 
mingled with the dust of the earth. 

Machines record for all time the every move- 
ment of the dramas and events of life in living 
reality, to be reproduced at will upon canvas, 



HISTORICAL RESUME 21 

not only for our own delight, but for the delight 
of generations yet unborn. And yet all these 
wonders are but the monuments of agriculture 
that were made possible only through the busi- 
ness of farming, or the business of the tilling of 
the soil, and emphasize the startling fact that a 
partial crop failure would result in distress, a 
total failure in disaster. 

When the world was created farming became 
its first business. After God had said "let there 
be Hght" and there was light. He divided the 
waters, the dry land appeared, and under His 
command it brought forth grass, the herb yield- 
ing seed, and the tree yielding fruit. He created 
man, planted a garden and put him into it to 
"dress it and to keep it.'* Satan came and 
tempted man. He fell, and his punishment was 
banishment from the garden into the pathless 
wastes of the wilderness, burdened with the awful 
sentence, "Curst is the ground for thy sake. In 
sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy 
life, and thou shalt eat the herb of the field." 

Thus in the very dawn of creation the tilling 
of the soil became the source of man's bread, and 
his first business, and so continued until the world 
became so wicked that God deluged all mankind 
with His waters, and none but Noah and those in 
his ark survived. 

When the waters receded and the dry land 
appeared and Noah left his ark, he built an altar 
and offered a sacrifice acceptable unto the Lord. 
And the Lord said, "I will not again curse the 
ground any more for man's sake." And Noah, 
after he had offered his sacrifice, began to be an 



22 THE BUSINESS OF FARMING 

husbandman, and again the business of farming 
became the first business of the only men then 
upon the earth, and has since so continued 
through all the ages of man's existence, and to- 
day, at the period of man's greatest development 
and power, he still must "eat of the ground" or 
perish. There is no other source for an adequate 
supply of food, so the business of farming, 
or tilling of the soil, was not only the first busi- 
ness to be established, but is even unto this 
day the first and most important business of any 
nation, and upon which every other business must 
build for a foundation. It is therefore incon- 
ceivable that a business almost as old as time it- 
self, so fundamental to man's existence, a busi- 
ness whose breasts have given the nourishment 
and power and the life to make every other busi- 
ness or achievement possible, should have through 
all the ages of the world's history received at 
the hands of man the mistreatment and neglect 
that the business of farming has received from 
the hand of him whom it has fed. But it seems 
that the history of the world has been but the 
history of conquest and despoliation. Nations 
and peoples have conquered nations and peoples 
and despoiled them, and so has man in all his 
history conquered the soil from the wilderness, 
only to despoil it by a sordid system of agricul- 
ture. If the business of farming could talk, well 
might it exclaim: *' Rescue my poor remains 
from vile neglect!" 

This is not a picture or wail of the pessimist, 
for do we not hear even to-day the cry of a John 
the Baptist crying in the wilderness of soil desola- 



HISTORICAL RESUME 23 

tion and soil destruction to flee from the wrath of 
worn and worn-out soils? 

His cry was even heard in ages past. It fell 
on ears deadened with greed and avarice and 
stolid indifference, and the wrath of worn and 
worn-out soils came as a pestilence and swallowed 
up nations once proud and great. 

When the gentle and loving Savior of mankind 
and his disciples walked through the fertile fields 
of Palestine plucking the ears of corn for their 
food, he was on the mission of talking and teach- 
ing the gospel of life and help and love to the 
multitudes that came from the fruitful valleys 
and hillsides of the fertile Holy Land that con- 
tained many cities of commerce and power; but 
now these cities lie covered with the debris of 
centuries, the fertile valleys and hillsides that 
sang to the Christ the song of plenty, lie stripped 
of their fertility by a system of soil neglect that 
mined them of their soil wealth and they have 
become "a dreary desert and a gloomy waste." 

Eomeward the student of history delights to 
set his face, for the study of its history is so 
fascinating. So, delving into the history of 
Rome, he finds that agriculture was once its big- 
gest business. She acquired the greatest agri- 
cultural literature ever possessed by any nation, 
and under its inspiration her agriculture so 
flourished that she grew in wealth and power and 
reached the pinnacle of her greatness. But she 
forgot the source of her power. Her agricultural 
operations were intrusted to slaves or bondsmen 
driven under the lash without wages, so her soil 
was neglected and her fields became stricken with 



24 THE BUSINESS OF FARMING 

sterility. In vain her Calumella sounded the 
warning and pointed out the way for the soil's 
restoration, but his warning and advice were 
spurned, ''the produce of the land was only four- 
fold," the soil suffered from greater neglect, 
remunerative crops were no longer harvested, 
and the nation went into decay. It is no wonder 
then that Rome's greatest poet became imbued 
with the hopeless creed of the fatalist when sing- 
ing of the degeneracy of agriculture, and ex- 
claimed : 

" 'Tis thus by destiny, all things decay 
And retrograde, with motion unperceived." 

The wise statesman Joseph gathered and gar- 
nered corn as the sand of the sea from the fer- 
tile valleys of the Nile, and so have generations 
since, yet these lands would have ages ago felt 
the blight of neglect had not old Nature sent 
down each year from the headwaters of the Nile 
the silt-laden floods to engulf, renew, and enrich 
them. 

China, standing forth in the list of agricultural 
countries, whose philosophy likens prosperity to 
a tree with agriculture as its roots, and industry 
and commerce as its branches and leaves, if the 
roots suffer the tree dies, has a vast area of 
abandoned farms once fertile and productive, the 
reclamation of which has been called the "Prob- 
lem of China." But even China is making a tre- 
mendous effort to maintain the fertility of most 
of her lands in cultivation, but she has done it 
by using a mixture of human excrement with fat 
marl, and by carefully saving every substance 



HISTOEICAL EESUME 25 

that can be converted into manure. Horns, 
hoofs, bones, soot, ashes, old plaster, hair, bar- 
bers' shavings, contents of sewers, vegetable 
refuse, human and animal urine being among the 
substances carefully garnered and used for main- 
taining soil fertility. 

Even thousands of her women haunt the streets, 
alleys, lanes and loafing places of men, and with 
baskets make it a business of gathering hu- 
man excrement, to be used for soil enrichment. 
Do we want the future generations of the women 
of America to sink to the level of gathering human 
excrement as a last resort that our soils may be 
stimulated so that they will produce the "food- 
ful ear" that our hungry hoards be fed? Yet the 
consummation of this very thing is no *4dle 
dream"; it will become a living reality if our soil 
waste be not stayed, and unless sane conserva- 
tion of soil fertility becomes a part of our agricul- 
tural economy, and unless the business of farm- 
ing be conducted as our great manufacturing and 
mercantile establishments are conducted and 
managed. 

The poverty-famine-stricken-fatalistic-death- 
longing inhabitants of India have become so 
through the environment of exhausted, worn-out 
soil that yields such a scant pittance that these 
people long for death, believing that somewhere 
beyond this pale of existence there is a land 
where they will be better fed. And yet, this 
famine, poverty-cursed land of mystery, with its 
fifty rivers winding their way to the ocean 
through unequaled valleys of once fertile soils, 
was at one time peopled with a race out of the 



26 THE BUSINESS OF FARMING 

common order, who wrote the most remarkable 
sacred literature that the world has ever known. 
Four hundred and fifty thousand square miles in 
Hindustan, an empire in itself, capable of sup- 
porting a mighty people, lie a waste untouched 
by plow or hoe, — '*A waste too bleak to rear the 
common growth of earth, the foodful ear," yet 
an area of soil said to be capable of yielding rich 
harvests. In cultivated lands of India one crop 
follows another in quick rotation, and only such 
crops are grown in this rotation which furnish 
food for man and beast, which crops always feed 
upon and consume the fertility of the soil. Those 
crops which produce the smallest amount of 
food for man and beast, yet feed the soil with the 
elements it needs to make it fertile, are unknown 
to these people. No means to enrich or build up 
the soil are used — not even manure, for fuel is so 
scarce that the dung of animals is dried and used 
for fuel. India's soil was once full of virgin rich- 
ness. It has become barren through cruel neg- 
lect. Her fields have become worn-out soils. 

England, Germany, and a few other power- 
ful nations of the old continent, a century or 
more ago, were confronted with the menace of 
worn and worn-out soils. But these nations rose 
to the occasion and realized that their soils must 
be compensated in some manner; that this com- 
pensation even meant to follow the spurned ad- 
\'ice of the wise Roman agricultural writers given 
centuries ago to the Roman farmer, which was: 
First; to plow well. Second: to plow again. 
Third: to manure. Fourth: to compensate the 
land by planting legumes and using them for 



HISTOEICAL EESUME 27 

green manuring. When these nations began to 
act along the lines of this splendid advice, their 
soils began to appreciate their good treatment, 
and poured into the laps of their husbandmen 
their increased and paying crop yields, and the 
truth was exemplified that even poor, dumb soils 
can show their appreciation of good treatment 
and compensation. 

Every living nation of the old continent to-day 
which ranks lowest in the scale of nations, whose 
people are steeped in ignorance and are wasted 
and diseased with famine, is a nation which pos- 
sesses in abundance worn-out soils, or soils which 
no longer produce paying crops. 

You may trace the progress of agriculture from 
the time that God made it the first business when 
He planted a garden and put Adam into it to 
"dress it and to keep it," to the time when 
America was first settled, and you will find that 
generally agriculture has been carried on un- 
der that system that has led to the soil's neglect. 

When the tide of immigration flowed to- 
ward the shores of newly discovered America, 
this continent of ours became peopled with men 
who brought with them this same spirit of soil 
neglect that had been their inheritance. The 
early colonists of Canada, New York, Pennsyl- 
vania, Virginia, Maryland, etc., found the land 
rich in the elements of fertility that Nature gave 
it. By a continual system of plowing, sowing, 
and reaping, it yielded for years bountiful crops 
of cereals, vegetables and tobacco, and when by 
this process the soil was strangled with its wasted 
fertility and the farms were despoiled, their 



28 THE BUSINESS OF FARMING 

owners with marble hearted ingratitude aban- 
doned the land that fed them and sought new 
soils to conquer and despoil, for they said in their 
hearts, America had of lands a plenty. 

Unspairingly did Clayton and Beverly of Vir- 
ginia, and Eliot of New England, denounce the 
methods of husbandry in vogue among the colon- 
ists, methods by which tobacco was continuously 
grown on the same land without the application 
of any fertilizing material, until the soil, ex- 
hausted of fertility, would no longer grow any 
crop and then was abandoned. 

Those colonial farmers for years scratched the 
surface of the soil with instruments which they 
deluded themselves into believing were plows, and 
so became imbued with the erroneous idea that 
deep plowing ruined the land, which idea seems 
to have been inherited by many of the farmers 
even of this generation. 

The agricultural economy of conserving soil fer- 
tility was never practiced by these people, but a 
system of soil pillage and neglect was so practiced 
by them that vast tracts of lands through every 
part and portion of our eastern states, originally 
abounding with a plethora of fertility, in less than 
two generations were exhausted of their soil 
wealth and became deserts too bleak to rear the 
foodful plants that feed mankind. These lands 
thus robbed and plundered along the Jerusalem 
and Jericho road of agriculture by the soil robber, 
the highwayman of agriculture, lie bleeding and 
sore, awaiting the kindly ministrations of agri- 
culture's good Samaritan, the Soil Doctor. In 



HISTORICAL RESUME 29 

the meantime Nature is applying to the stricken 
victim the simple slow process of restoration. 

The hosts of soil conquerors and soil despoil- 
ers have since colonial days been marching 
through our land. For after the American 
farmer had mined out the soil wealth of the New 
England states by sordid tillage, he moved west- 
ward, preempted more rich virgin soils and mined 
out their wealth by the same damnable tillage. 
Not content with the waste he had wrought on 
the soils he had already pillaged, he moved on 
into the rich forest covered soils of Indiana and 
Kentucky, and the prairie soils of Illinois, and 
laid his devastating hands upon these soils and 
also pillaged them of their fertility. And yet not 
content with the waste he had wrought, he crossed 
the '' Father of Waters," carrying with him the 
same system of sordid tillage and devastated the 
prairie plains of Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska and 
Kansas, upon which Nature had for centuries 
garnered and stored fertility which, if it had been 
carefully conserved, would have poured out its 
wealth in crops for ages. 

He moved on to the Dakotas, conquered the 
prairie sod, worked it up into the rich seed bed 
that grew crops of wheat and flax for a genera- 
tion that made him rich. But finally Nature re- 
sented the infamy of one continuous crop grow- 
ing for years upon her soils, and began to with- 
draw her bounty, and now that vast area of wheat 
and flax lands does not produce paying crops of 
these grains for the small land owner. It is only 
the large land owner with his thousand of acres 



30 THE BUSINESS OF FARMING 

with its small profit to the acre, who can success- 
fully fann those lands. 

Again he raised his eyes and looked still west- 
ward and sought more soils to conquer and to 
pillage. He sighted the rich valleys of the 
Golden State and swept down upon them, and 
subjected these acres to the scourge of a con- 
tinuous one crop growing of wheat until the soil 
refused longer to give up its increase, so he 
pushed on and on until the mighty Pacific stayed 
his course. 

This conquering and pillaging of the fertile 
soils of the Mississippi and Missouri valleys and 
the plains of the AVest occurred chiefly during the 
period of years from 1870 to 1895 when most of 
these soils were subdued to cultivation. The 
larger portion of these lands were bare of timber, 
so were ready for the plow. It was a period when 
improved farm machinery came into use which 
resulted in extensive rather than intensive farm- 
ing. 

The virgin richness of these soils for years 
poured out their crop wealth to the farmer, and 
while difficulties of transportation were encoun- 
tered, yet the markets were congested with farm 
products and vast quantities found their way to 
the old country, and other nations were fed from 
our fann products. 

The great cities and great manufacturing 
plants were built and the progress of our coun- 
try was wonderful, but as the fertility of these 
lands was being slowly mined out, though crop 
production increased, there was no money in 
farming, farmers became land poor, and the 



HISTORICAL RESUME 31 

movement of both men and boys from the farm 
began. Land depreciated as well as fertility of 
the soil, and our soil's crisis became a part of 
our agricultural economy. Our farmers were in 
a helpless condition ; many could not live and pay 
the interest upon their indebtedness, and fore- 
closure and loss of their land resulted. But the 
people of the world continued to eat, so about 
the year 1895, when our lands had practi- 
cally been all subdued, and consumption had 
caught up with and outstripped production, farm 
products and farm values began to advance, which 
led to still more extensive and less intensive 
farming. The growing of certain grains became 
profitable, so farmers confined themselves to one 
crop. All these forces led to a further lessening 
of crop fertility. 

For a long period farming has been a paying 
business and the farmer has driven his farm to 
its limit of production, and its soil in conse- 
quence has been sorely neglected, and the soil 
robber has become more bold in his nefarious oc- 
cupation of robbing the soil of its wealth. 

The reader, no doubt, is impressed that the 
writer's indictment against the American farmer 
is too severe and his condemnation too strong, 
and that after all, agriculturally, soil conditions 
in our land are not so bad. To the casual ob- 
server this may seem true. He reads the Depart- 
ment of Agriculture Reports of 1912 bumper 
crops, and concludes that with our nation, agri- 
culturally, all is well. And yet if we compare the 
1912 crops with the general ten-year average, we 
find a difference of but a small per cent., and dur- 



32 THE BUSINESS OF FARMING 

ing the past ten years have not all our crops been 
consumed? And yet many of our people have 
not had a full dinner pail or a loaf of bread upon 
their dining table, and have gone to bed night 
after night suffering the pangs of hunger. 

Have we not had for years a mighty agitation 
as to the ''high cost of living"? An agitation 
no doubt solely responsible for the concep- 
tion and birth of a new and powerful political 
party, and for a mighty political party with a 
proud history to go do^\^l in humiliating defeat, 
if not to its death. Yet after all, has not the 
"high cost of living" been brought about by the 
high appreciation of the products of the soil? 

Our nation is growing at a tremendous rate. 
A million of foreigners a year are coming to its 
shores, mingling with its people, and yet, but lit- 
tle of its soil capable of being cultivated is un- 
reclaimed. We have a hundred million of people 
to feed and less than one-half of them are pro- 
ducers of food. If, then, for the past ten years 
we have produced crops showing a general 
average nearly equal to the average of this, our 
most prosperous year agriculturally, and those 
crops have been consumed at high prices, which 
always is indicative of short supplies, how can 
we continue to feed our people enough, and yet 
feed the people coming to our land like as a mul- 
titude? 

But, really, is our soil condition so serious? 
Are we facing a soil exhaustion crisis? Has the 
business of farming been so neglected? To an- 
swer these questions we have but to point to the 
fact that in the past ten years our population hag 



HISTORICAL RESUME 33 

increased 21 per cent., the acreage of our farm 
lands 4.8 per cent. In other words, the number 
of mouths to feed has increased nearly five times 
as rapidly as the source of our food supply, and 
the country has been producing less per acre than 
it produced ten years ago. 

We point to the abandoned farms of the East, 
to the ''Volusia soils" stretching from the Hud- 
son River westward across Pennsylvania into the 
Ohio, an area of ten million acres, once fertile 
soils occupied by fine old homes and barns, now 
seemingly unfit for cultivation, and to the ex- 
hausted cotton and tobacco lands of the South. 

Look at the reputed rich com lands of Ohio, 
Indiana, Illinois and Iowa, upon which less than 
fifty years ago the writer has seen ''King Corn" 
lift his proud head twelve to fifteen feet in the 
air, waving and rustling his rich green heavy 
foliage with every passing wind, bearing his 
heavy golden ears beyond man's reach, that meas- 
ured to the husbandman eighty and one hundred 
bushels to the acre, where now he sees him with 
dwarfed and diseased body bearing his shriveled, 
chaffy ears so near the ground that it becomes a 
burden to gather them, ears that measure less 
than a score of bushels to the acre. 

And this latter condition is not a limited one by 
any means. You see it on thousands of acres, 
and it applies to the growing of all crops. Crop 
yields on these lands are growing smaller each 
year; the area of worn soils grows larger and 
larger; it is our nation's most vital disease which 
has insidiously fastened itself upon our soils, and 
like a cancer existing in the human body, "with- 



34 THE BUSINESS OF FARMING 

out marked symptoms, not appearing so bad as 
it really is, yet becomes active upon some slight 
occasion," and plunges its victim into excru- 
ciating suffering and lingering death. 

R. G. Dunn & Co. say that ''true national pros- 
perity springs from the soil," but it will never 
spring from a soil so diseased that it produces 
crops of a stunted growth. 

We have shown how a people living on a weak, 
worn soil, are listless and without ambition. 
Their soil yielding barely enough to furnish food 
to sustain their lives, they have nothing left with 
which to buy any of the comforts of life, or to 
employ the means by which their soils can be 
made to produce paying crops. Their energy is 
sapped up by this discouraging environment. 
This veiy condition exists to-day to an alarming 
extent among the people in the "Highlands" or 
mountain districts of the South. These people 
are the descendants of the signers of the Declara- 
tion of Independence, and heroes of the Revolu- 
tionary War, and the blue blood of the best cit- 
izens of colonial days courses through their veins. 
They would be a proud, prosperous and useful 
people were they but possessed of fertile soils, 
but as it is, their spirit is broken, their pride is 
gone, they are victims of a soil that has withdrawn 
from them its bounty, because it has become worn 
and unproductive. 

These same conditions are obtaining in every 
portion of our country, even in the rich corn-belt 
district. The writer sees it every day. Farms 
once rich and fertile which have in the past made 
their owners rich, but which now, after experi- 



HISTORICAL RESUME 35 

encing forty or fifty years of a mining process 
by whioh the main elements of soil fertility liave 
been mined out of them, are now in the possession 
of men and their families that possess the same 
broken, discouraged spirit as the ''Highlanders** 
of the South who do not seem to be able to lift 
themselves above their environment and change 
the condition of their soil. 

And as our soils continue to grow poorer and 
poorer this condition of our people will become 
more acute and spread like an infectious disease. 

But what has caused or brought about this 
alarming condition? Greed, eaivironment and 
preaching of false agricultural doctrines. The 
farmer of the past found the soil rich in all the 
elements that make a fertile soil. He scorned 
the study of scientific agriculture. His policy 
was to haul to the barn everything that grew upon 
his soil. With match he burned the fertilizing 
by-products of his farm. He forgot that soil is 
a "living, breathing thing," and like his beasts 
must be fed and groomed. His main thought was 
the dollars that could be produced from his farm 
products. Is it any wonder then that his soil 
was strangled with its wasted fertility"? 

We have shown how the pioneer found our rich 
soils, rescued them from the wilderness and sub- 
jected them to the growing of crops for gain. 
These soils were rich in every element necessary 
to a fertile soil which would produce a hundred- 
fold for a generation or more, and so these pioneer 
farmers did not see the need of soil conservation. 
They became imbued with the false notion that 
their soils would never wear out. Under this 



36 THE BUSINESS OF FARMING 

condition of false security the pioneer farmer did 
not teach his children the principles of soil con- 
servation, and these children grew up impreg- 
nated with the same false notions, transmitted 
them to their children, and thus an environment 
has been thrown around the pioneer farmer, his 
children and children's children, an environment 
that has held scientific agriculture and book farm- 
ing in contempt, and which has led to methods that 
have mined our soil wealth and which is responsi- 
ble for much of our worn soil. 

Again the voice of the False Teacher has been 
heard upon our farms, and we have listened to 
the promulgation of the false doctrine that crop 
rotation alone, and like doctrines, would maintain 
the fertility of our soils. 

Even our Government through its great agri- 
cultural department that has done so much to 
make the business of farming flourish, has pro- 
mulgated the infamous doctrine that our soil is 
in no real danger of exhaustion and that soil "vvill 
not wear out, and yet almost within a bird's eye 
view from the dome of our splendid capitol at 
Washington, thousands of acres of agricultural 
lands lie abandoned, which less than one hundred 
years ago were occupied by a hospitable, chivalric 
people living in the stately southern homes and 
mansions surrounded by fertile fields abounding 
with a plethora of farm produce. Why have 
these once splendid fields become a desolation, a 
dreary waste? Because their soils lost their 
power to produce paying crops, and so became 
worn out. Scientifically speaking, these soils 
were not destroyed, they still contain plant food 



HISTORICAL EESUME 37 

elements, but nevertheless they are so worn out 
that they no longer produce the crops that pay 
for the labor required to grow them, although 
they were farmed with proper tillage and under 
proper rotation of crops. 

Lexicographers define the word exhaust as to 
drain, to use or expend wholly or until the supply 
comes to an end ; to deprive wholly of strength, to 
use up, to wear or tire out, to wear out. If, then, 
these soils were abandoned because their owners 
could no longer grow upon them sufficient crops 
to support them, was not their fertility ex- 
hausted? To us laymen of agriculture, it cer- 
tainly seems that they were exhausted and that 
our great Agricultural Department has promul- 
gated a vicious doctrine, the teaching of which, if 
followed by the farmers of America, will lead 
every acre of our agriculture lands towards and 
into the doom of the abandoned farm. 

Thus the Nation's worn and worn-out soils, 
our stern inheritance, become its most vital dis- 
ease, and our greatest business is threatened with 
serious injury. 

We must realize that this is the most serious 
problem confronting the husbandman to-day, and 
unless we realize this menace to our nation's 
prosperity and combat it, this nation of ours will 
perish from the face of the earth as surely as 
many of the dead nations of history perished 
from the same cause. 



CHAPTER II 

THE DISCOURAGEMENTS AND VICISSITUDES OF THE 
BUSINESS OP FAEMING 

EVERY human being is susceptible to the 
influences of discouragement. Many pos- 
sess the happy faculty of presenting to the world 
a front that shows no evidence of its blighting 
effects, and surely thrice happy is he who can 
meet the discouragements of life with that human 
courage we call grand and sublime. 

We who are susceptible to the influences of dis- 
couragement, would gain much courage and help 
if we would but remember that even the Christ, 
when on earth, came under the crushing power of 
discouragement, for, when he learned that one of 
his disciples had bargained to betray him for 
thirty pieces of silver, and that another had pur- 
posed in his heart to deny him, he came to Geth- 
semane with a heart and body broken and bowed 
down with exceeding sorrow and discouragement, 
fell upon his face, and prayed for the passing of 
the cup. Yet, in that hour of quiet prayer within 
the stillness of Gethsemane, he gained the cour- 
age that bore him through the greater trial of 
the Cross, Calvary and death. 

There is not a business but has its periods of 
discouragements, its drawbacks, its vicissitudes. 
Panics come, sweep away the fortunes of business 

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DISCOUEAGEMENTS 39 

men, and leave them stranded with naught but 
hope remaining. We who are engaged in the 
business of farming know of the discouragements 
that beset it. 

The vicissitudes of weather are such that we 
are often unable in the spring to put the soil at 
the right time in proper condition for the plant- 
ing of seed, or to get the seed planted at its ap- 
pointed time. And the seeds we plant may be so 
inferior that they will not germinate and grow, 
or grow and produce crops of inferior quality 
and productiveness. 

Periods of drought come with their exaspera- 
tions, difficulties and problems. Constant rain af 
harvest may in a short period of time destroy 
the matured crop before it can be harvested, and 
we are not without the devastation of fire and 
flood. 

Every crop grown upon the farm, whether fruit 
or vegetable, and every animal or fowl on the 
farm, has its insect pest or fatal disease, and the 
farmer must ever be on the alert and fight them 
with vigor or they leave destruction and death in 
their track. 

Even the soil has its ills and its diseases, loses 
its power to produce, and requires the services 
of a soil doctor. 

And then there are the perplexing questions 
pertaining to the marketing of the farm produce. 
Conditions obtain that not only prevent the mar- 
keting of certain products, but beat down and de- 
stroy the profit, and even cause the marketing of 
produce for less than cost of production and actual 
loss. Or there may be the entire lack of market, 



40 THE BUSINESS OP FARMINa 

and the farmer's produce rots in the fields. So 
if the farmer is not a brave man with the true 
spirit of fight within him, and so equipped to fight 
the discouragements that constantly beset the 
business of farming, he, too, passes under the 
baleful influences of discouragement. 

But when he comes under such influences he 
can, as every other discouraged man can, gain 
much comfort and relief in the study of compari- 
son. Compare your condition with your less 
fortunate neighbor, and you will, if your mind has 
not already become imbittered with the spirit of 
a malcontent, find that after all there is much in 
your life for which you should be thankful, and 
for which you are under obligations to show your- 
self a man, that your less fortunate neighbor may 
be helped in deed and by your example. 

The awful depressing shadow of discourage- 
ment must needs fall upon us all that we may bet- 
ter enjoy the lit up landscapes of life. 

There are periods in the life of each one of us 
when we flee to our gardens of Gethsemane, 
where we fall upon our faces and pray for the 
passing of the cup of discouragement. For how 
often we exclaim: "Let me hide in the hidden 
cleft of the rocks far away from the haunts of 
men where we can be alone with Nature that she 
may heal the stinging wounds of discourage- 
ment." When these periods of discouragement 
come to us who are engaged in the business of 
farming, we should rise phcenix-like from its 
ashes, go out and seek some work, and apply our- 
selves to it so vigorously that it will set the slug- 
gish blood in our veins to so active a circulation 



BISCOUEAGEMENTS 41 

that it will in a short time throw off our depres- 
sion, and will bring us into the sunlight of hope 
and good cheer. And we will then be the men and 
women God intended we should be. 

When man or woman is under the environment 
of discouragement, then the Devil is reaping his 
best harvest, for to give way to the wiles of dis- 
couragement is but seeking the courts of the 
Devil where we become easy prey to the multi- 
plicity of temptations there abounding, the yield- 
ing to which brings misery and death. 

In periods of sunshine we should avoid the do- 
ing of those things that are apt to bring about 
conditions that surely lead to discouragements. 
But when the trials of life do o'er take us, we 
must be bigger than our troubles and rise to the 
heights of human courage. Hard, do you say? 
Yes, if we allow ourselves to get the grouch habit. 
But if we cultivate the spirit of thankfulness and 
contentment, try to be satisfied with our lot in 
life, if there is no legitimate way to improve it, 
we can find much, even in the trials and sorrows 
of life, for which to be thankful, and much for 
encouragement. At least we would see success 
where we now see failure, or would see opportuni- 
ties upon which we could lay our hold and ham- 
mer out from them success and fortune. 

The farmer in the vast majority of cases has 
the least cause to be discouraged with his busi- 
ness. It always affords him shelter and some- 
thing to eat and wear. He is more independent 
of strikes, business depression, or panics, or other 
disturbances in the business world than any other 
business or profession. So there is little excuse 



42 THE BUSINESS OF FARMING 

for him to whine and get the grouch spirit when 
discouragement settles upon him. 

But above everything he should avoid the 
** kicking habit," unless he contracts the right 
sort of a ''kicking habit." For there are two 
kinds and we should strive to possess the one, the 
other we should avoid as we do a pestilence. 

The two are easily distinguished. The one is 
kicking against some bad law or condition, some 
obnoxious person, or some wrongs that really and 
truly exist. The other is the kicking against the 
unseen, the unapproachable. Nature's immutable 
laws, true progress and improvement, and the 
natural laws of trade, commerce and finance. 

John Kendrick Bangs in the little couplet 

"I've never found by kicking yet 
That I could make a dry day wet : 
But I can make a wet day fair 
By putting on a smiling air," 

shows the utter folly of kicking against conditions 
that no human agency could possibly change, and 
shows us how we may turn such conditions to our 
everlasting advantage. 

The farmer can so easily cultivate the grouch 
pessimistic spirit by everlasting kicking against 
the unpreventable conditions, so he should ever 
strive to rise to sublime heights and take the 
sting from them wuth the ''smiling air" which 
scatters the darkest clouds and lights up the most 
sorrowful face with luminous joy. 

But the farmer should cultivate, as every other 
good citizen should, the true kicking spirit as 



DISCOURAGEMENTS 43 

given, for I would have every farmer to be a conr- 
ageous man, a man alive to the evils and wrongs 
that abound, and possessed with the spirit of 
righteous indignation and expression against 
them. Don't drift with the indifferent, unthink- 
ing, backboneless crowd. Be a kicker among the 
kickers, that do the kicking that pays. Kick 
against the trade and marketing evils that beset 
your business. Kick against the liquor traffic, 
child of the Devil, that has always shown itself 
proud of its parentage and ever the foe to your 
best interests, and kick from your farms any bad 
condition that hinders true progress, mars the hap- 
piness of yourself or family, and remember, while 
you are kicking, that kicking will never make a 
"dry day wet" or a ''wet day fair," restore the 
spilled milk to the overturned pail, "mend the 
broken treasure," but that the "smiling air" will 
dispel the gloom of the wet and the dry day, fill 
another pail with milk and repair or replace the 
broken treasure. 

In fine, we should get into the game of life and 
play it with the vim and vigor exercised by the 
athlete. Inactivity is a mental state and disease, 
caused largely by discouragements, and God pity 
the man or woman who falls under its deadly in- 
fluence. 

It is said that the white blood corpuscles in the 
blood of man are the big policemen that accom- 
pany the blood through our veins, arresting and 
destroying the bacteria that brings disease and 
death to our bodies. They are active in the body 
of the man or woman full of life and activity. So 



44 THE BUSINESS OF FARMING 

if we would live possessed fully of our every 
faculty, we must get into the game of life with 
that activity that will give the white corpuscles 
a chance to do their work, and when we have done 
that, the discouragements will not overtake us. 

We, too, should remember that happiness is 
largely a state of the mind. He who possesses 
a "conscience clear, a mind at ease" and can be 
amused by the "simple pleasures that always 
please," has won its elusive smile. But to pos- 
sess the "conscience clear," we must be engaged 
in honest employment or business and give the 
"square deal" to our fellow man. 

To possess the mind at ease is not to do the 
things that prick the conscience, be possessed of 
a healthy body and ever be industriously engaged 
about something worth while, ever remembering 
and giving due obeisance to the God that holds 
our destinies in his hands. 

To possess the simple pleasures is within the 
reach of us all, for it is nothing more than en- 
joying the hannless jDleasures that do not over 
excite, and stimulate, and which are incident to 
our stations in life, within the reach of all, and 
that satisfy, if our minds be in the right condi- 
tion. Sighing and striving for the pleasures and 
the things above our station in life, even though 
we could possess them, would not add one mite to 
our happiness, and is the pricking thorn that irri- 
tates, producing the festering, poisoned sore of 
unrest and unhappiness. 

These reflections upon discouragements and 
their cure are here recorded because the author 
knows that every farmer is subject to their in- 



DISCOURAGEMENTS 45 

fluences, and if he is not helped to combat them, 
the business of farming is surely injured, and 
they constitute a good prelude to the discussion of 
subjects to follow. 



1 



CHAPTER in 

HINDEANCES TO THE BUSINESS OF FAEMING 

WE have already touched upon one of the 
chief hindrances to the business of farm- 
ing, that of the resentment on the part of so large 
a per cent, of those engaged in the business 
against agricultural teaching and training. But 
we have sho^vn that this condition is being fast 
eliminated from our farms by the rapid inaugura- 
tion of agricultural teaching and training in our 
public schools and colleges. When our young 
men and women are taught and trained to agricul- 
ture, the spell of indifference, resentment to bet- 
ter farm methods, and pioneer environments will 
become broken and will no longer constitute a 
hindrance to the business. 

In the past there has been a steady stream of 
boys and girls mnding its way from the farm to 
the city. But few of the boys and girls caught 
up by this ever flowing stream returned to the 
farm. They were the best blood of the farm. 
True they were seeking the ''better opportunity," 
a worthy ambition to wliich every one should 
aspire, but they should have been made to see the 
vision of the ''better opportunity" on the farm. 

The great majority of professional, business 
and workingmen of our cities were poured into 
our cities by this ceaseless stream flowing from 

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HINDRANCES 47 

our farms. It has resulted in an over supply of 
men for the various businesses, trades, profes- 
sions, common labor, and the founding of all man- 
ner of devices and schemes for the eking out of 
an existence with all their attending crimes and 
evils. It has given us the excess of middlemen 
and thus presented one of the alFeged problems 
and hindrances to the business of farming. An 
ample supply of middlemen is a necessity and a 
benefit to the business of farming; but an over 
supply leads to the practice of dishonest tricks 
of trade, resorted to by so many of the commission 
men whose ranks are so over crowded that some 
of their number must resort to dishonesty in or- 
der to live. 

We hear it said so often that ''the time has 
come in this land of ours when more men must 
be producers and fewer live on the work of those 
who do produce." This is good philosophy, but 
what would happen if all men were producers! 
From whence would we secure the people to con- 
sume our products'? What we most need is the 
removal of the barriers thrown between the pro- 
ducer and the consumer — the barrier of exces- 
sive freight, the exacting, dishonest commission 
men, wholesaler, and retailer. And we need the 
betterment of labor conditions so that the labor- 
ing men of our cities may receive a living wage, 
for he is the great consumer of farm products. 
So when you put these farm products at his door 
and at the right price, and he is receiving ample 
wages, he will purchase them in such quantities 
that the farm will have to hump itself to produce 
them. Our produce will command the price that 



48 THE BUSINESS OF FARMING 

pays the profit, and farm conditions will be so 
improved that more men will go into the business 
of farming, and the congestion of workers in our 
cities will be relieved. 

The author does not believe it possible or prac- 
ticable to entirely eliminate the middlemen stand- 
ing between the farmer and the consumer. Like 
every question it has its two sides. The middle- 
men have done a great work for our country. 
Stop and consider their achievements. They 
have built our cities with their massive business 
blocks, hotels, churches, school buildings, li- 
braries, universities, colleges and beautiful resi- 
dences. They have erected, put, and kept in 
operation our manufacturing plants, that have 
led to the invention and manufacture of those 
splendid, wonderful and varied machines, devices, 
goods, wares, and merchandise that have light- 
ened toil, lessened labor, and contributed to our 
enjoyment in a thousand ways, and that have 
cheapened the necessities of life, and have given 
us opportunities of living never enjoyed by any 
age of the world's history. 

They have furnished the money to build our 
railroads, steam ships, and canals. They have 
established banks that have furnished much of 
the capital to carry on farm operations. 

They have almost universally contributed the 
capital by which have been made possible our 
church organizations that have carried on and 
promulgated the religion of the Christ, the very 
foundation of good society, and the erection and 
maintaining of the hospitals where the diseases 
and frailties of man have been cured and cor- 



HINDRANCES 49 

rected, sending joy, happiness and good cheer to 
the afflicted and distressed. 

You can scarcely lay your finger upon a single 
enterprise of any kind or character in any com- 
munity, but what has been promoted by the so- 
called middleman, and pushed to completion, or 
continued in operation by his money, his brains, 
and enterprise. Entirely to eliminate him from 
our business economy is but the fancied dream 
of the scheming politician, promulgated to keep 
him in power. The thoughtful man knows that 
the sensible thing to do is to eliminate the evils 
that have crept into the middle class, and 
promulgate the things that will so bring to- 
gether the producer, the middleman and the 
consumer, that the producer and the middleman 
can live and prosper, and the consumer will pur- 
chase his products that will eliminate the high 
cost of living and put us all upon the plane of 
better living. 

That there are too many middlemen there is no 
question. Fifty years ago twelve out of every 
fifteen people in the United States engaged in 
agriculture. Now, out of every four of our popu- 
lation, three are living in the city and are not 
producers. Yet if you will take a census of the 
so-called middlemen it will show just as we have 
already stated that they were mainly recruited 
from the ranks of the producers or from the farm, 
and the very reason they joined the ranks of the 
middle class was that t/hey were seeking to better 
their condition. If those things had been done 
that would have made farm life more profitable 
and better, and improved the opportunities 



50 THE BUSINESS OF FARMING 

of the farm, they never would have left the 
farm. 

When soil building and fertility maintenance, 
and methods of better living are emphasized upon 
the farm, more people will remain upon, or go 
back to the farm. It is our natural instinct to 
live in agreeable and social surroundings, and if 
we do not find these things in one place we seek 
for them in another. 

Man likes to engage in the business that is con- 
genial to his tastes, if it pays. Some men will 
engage in the most miserable and soul destroy- 
ing business simply because there is money to be 
made in it, but the majority prefer an honorable 
business. 

The business of farming is conceded to be the 
most independent business on earth, and it can 
be made the most enjoyable business, and a profit- 
able business. That it has been a business of 
drudgery full of hard work there is no question, 
but the wonderful changes in farm machinery and 
appliances for comfort, and work relieving de- 
vices, have made it become a business no more 
irksome than any other business, and it can, in 
fact, be made as easy as any business. When the 
author says these things he is not writing theory, 
he is writing knowledge gained from practice. 
He worked at farm labor when the hours were 
long and the farm work was done chiefly by 
brawn, with no improved farm machinery to help. 

He has stood behind the counter in the city 
store from six o'clock in the morning until ten 
o'clock at night, with but the short cessation of 
going to meals, waiting on scores of exacting, irri- 



HINDRANCES 51 

table customers, until he was tired in body and in 
mind. He has toiled from ten to twelve hours a 
day at the stone and brick mason trade. He 
practiced law for more than a score of years, with 
a large clientage, and did office work, and tried 
law suits until his body was so tired and brain so 
jaded that he could scarcely sleep. 

He has managed and carried on a manufactur- 
ing business with its perplexing and harassing 
problems, annoyances and drawbacks, and he 
knows much of the modern methods of farming. 

To remove many of the hindrances to the busi- 
ness of farming those engaged in it must develop 
the social side of the farmer's life. At present 
it is the least developed. The cooperative or- 
ganizations among the farmers along the lines 
that will draw them together so that they may 
discuss the problems pertaining to their business 
should be encouraged. Every other business 
has similar organizations which not only pro- 
mote better business, but also develop the social 
side and thus provide the recreation that every 
one needs, and which helps so much to make 
smooth the rough places of life's pathway. 
When the social side of the business of farming 
has been so developed that every farm community 
will be supplied \vith those organizations that 
give to every one engaged in the business the 
opportunity to secure better farm methods and 
better farm living, then the stream of humanity 
flowing from country to city will be stayed. 

There is a farmers' society which assails the 
movement to increase crop yields upon the ground 
that large crop yields will injure instead of bene- 



52 THE BUSINESS OF FAEMING 

fit the farmer, unless marketing conditions are 
improved. It even asserts that the movement of 
better farming is backed by produce exchanges 
and boards of trade who are old enemies of the 
farmer with new faces, because they are operating 
through the agricultural colleges, and who are 
seeking by improved methods of farming to have 
produced an over-supply of farm products so that 
they may buy it at low prices and sell at high 
prices. 

In fine, this society would have every farmer to 
install upon his farm those methods which produce 
worn and worn-out soils and so limit the produc- 
tion of farm produce. In other words, the mem- 
bers of this society would have our agricultural 
economy augmented with worn, worn-out and 
abandoned soils, and with discouraged, unambi- 
tious farmers, as a means of enhancing the prices 
of the small, inferior amount of produce, that 
would result if such a condition should obtain 
upon our soils. 

Surely in this age when a multiplicity of brain- 
storm reforms are sweeping over our land like 
cyclones, it behooveth the American farmer to 
keep close to shelter. 

The author asserts without fear of successful 
contradiction that no matter how extensively better 
farm methods may be installed upon our farms, 
the time is not in sight when the staple lines of 
farm produce like wheat, com, oats, rye, hay, etc., 
and live stock, are likely to be produced in such 
quantity that they will not sell from the farm at 
a profit. 

This condition may obtain with fruits and veg- 



HINDRANCES 53 

etables unless barriers of transportation and 
marketing be removed, but with those hindrances 
brushed away there is a market for all the fruits 
and vegetables produced upon our farms at prices 
that compensate the grower. 

In the matter of the buying of goods, there is 
a hindrance to the business of farming worthy of 
a most serious consideration. 

The author does not question the right of any 
farmer to buy goods in the cheapest market, but 
he does deplore the fact that so many farmers pur- 
chase so much of their groceries, furniture and 
other necessities, through the mail order houses. 
We should not forget that it is the home merchant 
that purchases much, if not all, of our produce, and 
bears the greater burden of taxation which gives 
us the protection of society and better highways ; 
in fine, every improvement that benefits the 
farmer. He builds our cities and gives us the 
markets that enhance the value of our lands, and 
in many instances gives us the accommodation of 
credit. And to forget him, and not to purchase 
his wares, especially when in nine cases out of ten, 
he gives us better goods at the same prices charged 
by the mail order houses, is ingratitude, and in- 
gratitude is the basest of sins. 

As members of society we must * ' give and take. ' ' 
We give up certain of our liberties that the re- 
mainder may be the better protected. Our very 
natures are such that we must ever have the re- 
straining hand of law over us. This makes nec- 
essary the existence of a government, and this 
government must extend to every community, and 
under our system has resulted in a state of exist- 



54 THE BUSINESS OF FAEMING 

ence unequaled by any in tlie world. We have 
prospered mightily ajid the business of farming 
has been given an opportunity that has pushed 
this country to its present position. To make 
any country prosperous and great it must be com- 
posed of many small, well regulated, prosperous 
communities, units or parts, and each citizen 
composing these parts must have at heart every 
feature of the community in which he lives, for 
the prosperity of the people and their business, 
the churches, the schools, the betterment of the 
roads and the highways, contribute to his pros- 
perity and the promotion of his happiness. 

If every citizen would take no interest in home 
affairs and would buy all his wares and merchan- 
dise through the mail order houses, what kind of 
a community would his community be? The mail 
order house contributes nothing to, nor cares any- 
thing for, your community. Its sole care is that 
it may get your dollar. 

To-day, and in the past, the so-called middleman 
has not only furnished the money for the chari- 
table institutions, hospitals, etc., but the money that 
has led up to better farm methods. The farmer 
has only contributed when forced to by taxation. 
The middleman has led. Before you shake him 
down, consider these things; if he has gro\\Ti ar- 
rogant, there is a way to reach him, but give him 
due credit for the things he has done. 

In these days we are hearing much about co- 
operation among farmers by which they may ob- 
tain better prices for their grain, their stock, and 
their various farm products; that we should 
have those farm societies whose object is to make 



HINDRANCES 55 

farmers fix the minimmn price for his pro- 
duce. 

It is a sin and a shame to see thousands of bush- 
els of apples lie rotting upon the ground, as the 
author has seen them this year in the Middle West 
for want of a market, when so many thousands 
in our cities can not obtain them at a price which 
they can afford to pay. And this very thing hap- 
pens every year with some line of vegetable or 
fruit. The fault lies in the methods of distribu- 
tion and marketing, — chiefly in the marketing. 
Commission men, looking of course solely to their 
own interests, are adverse to an over supply of 
any one vegetable or fruit, so they maintain prices, 
and take steps to prevent produce from reaching 
the market in quantities. Much of this evil can 
be eliminated by the establishment of markets 
in all of our cities of any considerable size, under 
the management and control of city authorities. 
Cities assume jurisdiction over gas, light and 
water companies, and the management and control 
of those things that maintain health and relieve 
disease and distress, and why not assume juris- 
diction and control over those methods and devices 
which will lead to a better distribution and market- 
ing of food supplies by which all the people of our 
cities may obtain food in ample amounts and at 
a reasonable price ? If such were done then when 
there was a plethora of farm products, waste 
would be eliminated, our people would have the 
opportunity to be fed with food at reasonable 
prices, and high prices would only prevail in cases 
of a failure or partial failure of crops. 

I do not believe that cooperative grain com- 



56 THE BUSINESS OF FARMING 

panies, creameries, canning companies or any 
company composed of farmers for the better mar- 
keting of farm products, will ever solve the ques- 
tion of the better marketing of farm products and 
the obtaining of better prices. 

After all, these companies are nothing more 
than the simple changing or shifting of middle- 
men. It requires the same number of men, pos- 
sessing the requisite skill to manage and carry on 
the cooperative enterprises, as it does to manage 
and carry on the non-cooperative enterprises. 
Therefore you must either employ the man- 
agers and employes to operate these coopera- 
tive concerns from the ranks of the non-co- 
operative concerns, or take them from the ranks 
of the farmers, and when you take them from 
the ranks of the farmers you eliminate that 
many men from the business of farming, and the 
business of farming suffers to that extent, and 
you put these farmers into a business for which 
they have no training or adaptation, and too often 
they do not make good, and the cooperative con- 
cerns fail. The highways of the business world 
are to-day strewn with the wrecks of these co- 
operative concerns. Some have made good, but 
the author is sure the majority have not. Every 
man to his business and every man to his trade, 
is absolutely necessary for the greater success. 
But after all, the cooperative concerns must sell 
their products to non-cooperative concerns, so 
they do not enhance profits, but simply divide 
tiie profits of their business among their stock- 
holders. 

But assuming that the cooperative concerns are 



HINDRANCES 57 

a success, you simply change the class of middle- 
men and cause a different distribution of the prof- 
its. But if they succeed in appreciating prices 
of farm products, to any great extent, would they 
not be combinations to boost prices, just as much 
as the great trusts organized for the boosting of 
prices, and therefore, be unlawful? 

Within the last twenty years the author has 
seen the rich lands of the com belt, now valued 
at $200 per acre, begging for buyers at $35 or 
$40 per acre. Corn was selling for 15 cents per 
bushel and other farm products in like propor- 
tion. In those days no cooperative movement on 
earth was powerful enough to bring about condi- 
tions that would enhance the prices, for there was 
a plethora of farm products and not enough con- 
sumers to consume them. When consumption 
caught up with production, then farm products 
began to enhance and prices of lands increase. 

The Medesian law of supply and demand will 
ever govern the price of commodities. If low 
prices prevail, the remedy is more consumers and 
better facilities for the better and cheaper trans- 
portation of products to the consumer, or the or- 
ganization which has for its purpose the storage 
and withholding from the market of products until 
prices adjust themselves to a higher level or the 
market is bare of products, which will cause ap- 
preciation. 

But after all are we not natural born kickers? 
We seem to overlook the unalterable laws of busi- 
ness and trade. That in the business world as 
well as in the moral and natural world ''periods 
of energy and faith are succeeded by ages of doubt 



58 THE BUSINESS OF FARMING 

and sloth. ' ' That periods of high prices are suc- 
ceeded by periods of low prices. That if we eat 
to surfeit we must needs fast. That if we over 
expand in business transactions a period of con- 
traction with its distress must come. The stem 
law of compensation obtains in every transaction 
of business and life. Some things we can change 
or reform. Many we cannot. Let us remove 
every hindrance to the business of farming that 
can be removed. 

The following perfectly true account which can 
be verified, taken from the New York World, 
shows that the farmer of the present century, with 
its apparent evils, has, after all, much for which 
to be thankful, when he considers his lot with the 
lot of the farmer living in the past ages. 

"A countryman living just beyond the outskirts of London, 
drove to the metropolis one day to order a few provisions, etc. 

"The countryman first went to the nearest cobbler's. There 
he bought a good pair of shoes. Not shoddy footwear, care- 
lessly turned out or even machine made, but hand-sewed and 
of line, strong leather. For this pair of shoes he paid just 
seven cents. 

"Next he drove to a butcher stall in Smithfield. There he 
bought a sheep, a dozen chickens and ten pounds of beef. 
For the sheep he paid ten cents. For the chickens he paid 
one and one-half cents apiece, or eighteen cents for the dozen. 
The ten pounds of beef cost him a nickel. For beef was 
half a cent a pound. 

"Stowing away his purchases in his big wagon, the farmer 
next stopped at a fish stall, where for ten cents he bought 
twenty-five big codfish, 

"His visit to the grain merchant cost him more. For he 
was forced to pay fifteen cents for a bushel of rye — a sum 
out of all proportion to his earlier purchases. It was cheaper, 
you seej to buy meat than the rye bread to eat with it. 



HINDRANCES 59 

"But his ensuing trip to the draper's for enough homespun 
cloth to provide him with a winter suit, atoned for the high 
price of the grain for he found that stout homespun cloth 
was selling at twelve cents an ell, or nine and three-fifths 
cents a yard. 

"The farmer had no trouble in carrying his wares home in 
his wagon. For the wagon was large. He had driven it to 
London full of firewood, and this wagon load of wood he had 
sold for thirteen cents. 

"The foregoing prices are all accurate. The high cost of 
living had not yet hit England. For, you see, all this hap- 
pened several years ago. 

"In fact, it was the beginning of the sixteenth century." 

There are abuses in the marketing of products 
that must be corrected even if resort to coopera- 
tion that results in loss, becomes necessary. 

For instance, there are commission men in 
scores of cities who solicit consignments of pro- 
duce which they agree to sell as choice products, 
and at the highest prices that can be obtained. 
However, when farmers get their returns for pro- 
duce shipped, language is used not conducive either 
to the spread of religion or strict belief in the nat- 
ural law of supply and demand. Produce of the 
choicest quality is shipped these commission men, 
the returns from which do not meet the cost of 
production, and in many cases the shippers are 
called upon to pay alleged losses. The excuse of 
** overstocked markets" is made to cover a multi- 
tude of sins committed by these commission men. 

A recent investigation in New York City re- 
vealed criminal conditions. The truckers of Long 
Island had been shipping their produce to these 
New York City commission men, with not enough 
returns to pay expenses, and they received so 



60 THE BUSINESS OF FARMING 

many reports of "overstocked markets" and other 
excuses, that the worm turned and struck back. 
Investigation disclosed that the journey of the 
produce from garden to consumer passed through 
from three to seven intermediaries. That these 
alleged commission men bought directly for their 
own account, thus not only violating the laws of 
agency, but of honesty and common decency. 
They went further into the filth of dishonesty and 
sold the produce to fictitious firms, even to their 
own wives and children. It was found that these 
men by these methods, without a dollar of capital 
invested, were able to roll along the Riverside 
Drive in fine motor cars and sail up the Hudson in 
luxuriously furnished yachts, while the Long 
Island produce was being grown by the producers 
at an actual loss. Do you wonder then, that these 
Long Island producers, when they became wise, de- 
vised the ''Long Island Home Hamper" scheme, 
by which their produce was brought to the kitchens 
of the consumer, and at a fine profit to themselves, 
and at a big saving to the consumer? Mr. Dis- 
honest Commission Man was left to reflect amid 
the ashes of his wrecked illegitimate business upon 
the old time maxim ''Honesty is the best policy." 
A similar condition as to dishonest commission 
men and ruinous prices and robbery of the pro- 
ducer has obtained in nearly every city of our land. 
And if honest commission men and merchants do 
not quickly take drastic measures to eliminate 
these conditions from their ranks, and establish 
those methods by which producers will obtain for 
their produce the living price, and the consumer 
can buy it at prices that ought to obtain under 



HINDRANCES 61 

legitimate conditions of supply and demand, then 
their businesses are doomed. 

The perfected parcel post has opened the way 
to the consumer, and has brought him and the pro- 
ducer closer together, and will eliminate much of 
the evil of market garden and fruit products, but 
it comes far from entirely solving the marketing 
problem. All consumers do not or are not in po- 
sition to avail themselves of its advantages. And 
all consumers and producers are not strictly hon- 
est. The producer does not always send the hon- 
est quality filled package, and the consumer too, 
resorts to dishonest tricks. Unless honest com- 
mission men reform their business and entirely 
eliminate the evils from it, then the author believes 
that resort must be had to the municipal market. 
That is the market we have already referred to 
under municipal control where the producer can 
bring and display his produce and meet the con- 
sumer face to face, where they can market upon 
the true merits of the produce and at honest com- 
petition regulated by supply and demand. 

These markets have been established in many 
cities the past year of 1913 and the author knows 
they have been a success. Yet he can see where 
even they do not solve all the farmer's marketing 
problems. Not all farmers can take the time to go 
to the city market and sell their produce. Other 
work demands his attention as well. So after 
trying all the remedies of parcel post, municipal 
markets, etc., do we not get right back to the best 
system of all, the getting closer together of the 
farmer and his merchant, and devising methods 
by which the farmer gets a fair price for his 



62 THE BUSINESS OF FARMING 

products, the merchant, the middle man, getting a 
fair share for his trouble and expense of distribu- 
tion to the consumer, and yet the consumer getting 
the produce at a price that eliminates much of 
the cost of high living? Does not this system, as 
we have shown, partake of the ''give and take" 
plan of society, by which we each give up certain 
liberties and privileges that the remainder may be 
the better protected? After all is there not some 
thing more in this life than the farmer, the middle- 
man, and the consumer receiving the exorbitant 
profits and cheaper products? We all want to 
get the best out of life in the way of better homes 
and home equipments, better surroundings, bet- 
ter highways, better schools and churches, better 
amusements, better government, yea, the better 
opportunity. But to get these things we must 
''give and take." If men and women will live 
in the towns and cities which they claim give them 
the better opportunities for the best living, then 
should they not pay the price for such opportuni- 
ties ? Let us remember that it is not wealth alone 
that gives the best and right living. We must be 
interested in every part and portion of our com- 
munity if we are going to get the best out of our 
life. It will never be possible for each one of us 
to withdraw or to think that we can withdraw from 
the activities of our communities, shut ourselves 
up as it were, and say we will have nothing to do 
with them. We each must concede something for 
the betterment of our communities. 

The high cost of living cannot entirely be laid 
at the feet of the producer. The fault lies largely 
with the consumer. He has demanded systems 



HINDEANCES 63 

of delivery and methods of living never dreamed 
of by his fathers, all of which has enhanced the 
cost of his living. When the author first began 
married life in the city, he bought his groceries 
largely in bulk, and did his own delivering. A 
system of water works, electric lighting, and other 
luxuries could not be obtained. But when they 
could be secured and were installed, they each 
brought their necessary appurtenances, which in- 
creased the cost of living. Many luxuries we now 
enjoy have seemingly become necessities. They 
are legitimate and make life more enjoyable, but 
add to the high cost of living. And yet when we 
did not have them we perhaps enjoyed life as well 
as we do now, and were not so worried with the 
expense that now greets us on every hand. If 
we must have all the advantages of modem civi- 
lization we must expect to pay for them, and 
should give these advantages due consideration 
when we are considering the problems of to-day 
and how to solve them. 

The thought has been expressed that, as our na- 
tion has practically conquered all her virgin soils 
and subdued them to cultivation, planted her cities 
on every hill and plain, established schools, col- 
leges and libraries in every portion of her domain, 
improved the highways and mail system so the 
mail and newspapers are being brought to every 
home, it has given us more men of leisure, and 
so a spirit has taken possession of our people 
which is leading out towards the reformation of 
all the real and imaginary public and private 
abuses that beset us. We do indeed see this spirit 
manifested upon every hand. In political parties 



64 THE BUSINESS OF FARMING 

and in national, state, and municipal governments. 
It has plunged our nation into a spirit of ''un- 
rest," that has made us "reform mad." Multi- 
tudinous organizations have sprung up on every 
hand with reformation or correcting of alleged 
evils as their purpose, which have influenced our 
legislative bodies of cities, states and nation to 
fill to a surfeit our statute books with laws for the 
regulation of everything imaginable, whose ob- 
jects are to correct real and imaginary evils and 
so many of which are never enforced. 

Many of these would-be reformative laws strike 
at old unalterable laws of trade, commerce and 
society, that no legislative enactment can ever 
alter, change or reform. Yet in the maddening 
desire to reform something, the very conditions 
that bring about much of the evils of society are 
entirely overlooked. We enact the laws that sim- 
ply lop off the branches of the tree of evil instead 
of the law that will strike at its root so as to de- 
stroy the tree itself. 

It is universally admitted that the liquor traffic 
is the source of nearly all crime, poverty and im- 
purity, costing our nation incomputable sums of 
money to pay for its destruction and devastation, 
yet when we strike at this monstrous tree of evil 
we lop off a branch here and there with a state 
prohibitive, local option, or regulative license 
trimmer, which may mar the shape of the tree, 
but the tree lives on and seems none the worse 
for the trimming. Is it not time we strike at the 
tree's root with one single nation wide prohibi- 
tion against the manufacture and sale of intoxicat- 
ing liquors, and at one blow eliminate a multitude 



HINDRANCES 65 

of evils responsible for the numerous conditions 
against which we have been so long, and against 
which we are now directing so great a body of re- 
form measures'? 

The evolution of modern businesses, the natural 
result of changed conditions of society, has thrown 
us into a reformatory fit and so much energy of 
speech, writing and legislative enactments, has 
been directed against the concentration of capital 
into great business combinations, which have 
actually brought about better business methods of 
manufacturing and transportation by which man- 
ufactured products have been cheapened one-half 
or more, and scores of men have been given em- 
ployment, and better conditions, both as to prices 
and employment, have been obtained that never 
could have been secured by the individual acting 
alone. Yet these combinations of capital which 
have brought these bettered conditions and ad- 
vantages to the people, have been denounced and 
legislated against as the most monstrous of evils 
that should not be allowed to exist, even under pro- 
per regulation. And writers and speakers who see 
both the good and the evils in these combinations 
of capital, and know that the proper thing is to 
regulate the evil out of them and encourage the 
good in them, are cowed and become afraid to ex- 
press their honest thoughts and convictions re- 
garding them. 



CHAPTER IV 

OUR WORN SOILS THE GREATEST MENACE TO THE 

BUSINESS OF FARMING AND HOW TO 

RESTORE THEM 

THE menace of wora soils, the farm's most 
serious problem, deserves further comment 
in a special chapter, notwithstanding we have al- 
ready said much about it and other menaces to 
the business of farming. 

We have shown how the "whip and spur" 
method of farming so long practiced in the United 
States, by which our soils have been subjected to 
the process of getting all you can out of them with- 
out the return of anything to maintain or increase 
fertility, has so exhausted vast areas of our soils 
that they no longer produce paying crops. Any 
soil that will not produce crops that more than 
pay for the cost of production, is a worn-out soil, 
and we must not be blind to the fact that they exist 
even to alarming proportions in every part and 
portion of our country, yea, in those portions that 
boast of their rich soils. 

"We have shown that a greedy husbandry, a 
sordid tillage, lack of capital, deceptive theories 
like crop rotation, etc., have been producers of 
worn and worn-out soils. 

There are scores of farms in the abandoned 
farm districts of the East, a humid region where 

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OUR WORN SOILS 67 

the rainfall is sufficient to insure perfect crop 
growth, capable of producing enough to feed mil- 
lions of people that now lie like fallow soil, grow- 
ing back into a wilderness as dense as the wilder- 
ness from which they were rescued centuries ago. 
These farms are set in landscapes beautiful be- 
yond comparison, interspersed by perfect roads, 
watered by springs and streams of never failing 
sparkling pure water, much of which can be har- 
nessed by dams and made to move the wheels that 
will manufacture the electricity to light the homes, 
barns, and move the many machines now manu- 
factured for the farmer's use. 

Why has the desolation of abandonment spread 
its solemn mantle over this splendid region, once 
busy with toiling, yet happy, prosperous people, 
owners of delightful homes surrounded by glo- 
rious church and educational privileges'? 

The lure of the West and of the city threw its 
spell around its young people. They wandered 
from the old homestead. The God fearing and 
peace loving father and mother sat empty hearted, 
desolate and distressed around the hearthstone, 
stared with aching eyes and broken hearts into 
the vacant chairs ; sorrowed away their lives, died 
and were laid to rest in the country churchyard, 
and no one w^as left to care for the old farm, for 
the young people who had left the old homes were 
yet beneath the influence of the spell that led them 
away, or were bowed down by circumstances that 
would not allow them to come back to their child- 
hood's home. So these farms became tenantless, 
the hand of abandonment fell upon them. 

Yet there was an underlying cause for this state 



68 THE BUSINESS OF FARMING 

of affairs that we all overlook, and it is the great 
American farm tragedy. If these farms had been 
producing the wealth that prosperous farms 
should produce, would all the younger generation 
have deserted them? Surely some would have 
remained behind to share and enjoy them. If we 
but search to the bottom of the whole matter we 
will find that these farms had been farmed for 
years under a system of farm procedure that made 
their fields sterile and barren. So long as they 
produced large crops they prospered their owners. 
Fine farm buildings were erected and homes with 
the comforts of life abounded, but as these soils 
became worn, crop production lessened, the spell 
cast by worn and worn-out soil spread its blight- 
ing influences throughout fields, valleys and home- 
steads, and the inhabitants thereof, especially the 
younger generations, fell easy victims to the lure 
of the city or of the West. 

'Tis true that the lure of the city and of the 
West have ever been some of the world 's greatest 
tragedies. Men and women have come under their 
seeming benign influence ever since cities were 
builded and the 'course of empires westward took 
their way, ' and will continue as long as cities exist, 
and until all the soils of the globe have been con- 
quered and subdued to man's service. And the 
world will never know the heart aches suffered 
around the firesides of the homes thej^ have 
desolated of their young manhood and woman- 
hood. 

But we do not believe the lure of the city and 
of the West will cast so great a spell about our 
people if conditions obtain that will dispel the 



OUR WORN SOILS 69 

curse of worn-out soils, and bring the soil back to 
where it will cheerfully take up again its burden 
of bearing crops that pay the profit, for when this 
is done possibilities of better farm living are made 
possible in every part and portion of our land, 
and the advantage of farm living will more than 
equal those of city living or elsewhere. 

But the worn soil problem confronts us and we 
can not get away from it. Can these soils be re- 
stored? If so, how? The plan adopted for their 
restoration must be one of quick action, for we 
can not wait fifty years as England did to restore 
our worn-out soils. 

A fertile soil, or one that will produce paying 
crops, is composed of certain minerals, plenty of 
organic matter, humus, soil bacteria, and is well 
ventilated. 

As a general rule the soil stratum of most all 
our soils has in it the necessary minerals, like 
potash, etc., to supply the needs of plant growth 
for centuries. All virgin soils abound in all 
the other elements that make up a fertile soil, 
but when virgin soils are brought under cultiva- 
tion and are subjected to years of tillage that has 
no thought of soil conservation, the elements of 
organic matter, humus, and nitrogen, become ex- 
hausted, these soils are no longer a favorable home 
for soil bacteria, they become cold and compact, 
ventilation is shut off, and they pass into the class 
of worn-out soils. 

The element soonest farmed out of fertile soils 
is nitrogen. This element is considered the ' 'most 
precious, the most important and the most costly" 
of all the soil elements. Virgin soil procured its 



70 THE BUSINESS OF FARMING 

supply of nitrogen from decaying vegetation or 
organic matter, and from the air through the work 
of those soil bacteria, which make their homes in 
the root nodules of those plants known as the ni- 
trogen gathering plants or the legumes, and who 
draw for their food the nitrogen from the air, 
and drawing more than they need, store the sur- 
plus in the soil where it becomes available for 
plant food. 

Worn-out soils are always deficient in ventila- 
tion, organic matter, nitrogen, humus and soil 
bacteria. 

Soils must be ventilated so that bacteria may 
live in them and that oxygen may reach the plant 
roots, for we have stated that it is as necessary 
for plant roots to breathe as human or animal 
beings. 

If we would but reflect and investigate we will 
find that in human, animal, insect and vegetable 
life, and even in inanimate substances, the great- 
est law is the law of service. Men and women 
make their lives one of service for their families 
and fellowmen. In the animal world one animal 
gives up its life that man or another animal may 
live. One insect is made to serve as food for an- 
other. The plant grows in the soil and with its 
roots caresses the rock particles of the soil stored 
with mineral plant food, and coaxes from them 
the mineral wealth which it utilizes for its food, 
lives its life, dies, and gives its body back to the 
soil to decay and become the food of soil bacteria 
whose mission is to compound the decaying body 
of the plant into plant food and humus for future 
plant growth. All have been lives of service, and 



OUR WORN SOILS 71 

without this law of service neither can live. 

The soil is bound by the same law of service and 
gives up its life elements that plants may live and 
grow and bear their burden of harvest that they 
too may render service to man. But soil can not 
live and render service unless service has been 
rendered unto it by plants and other fertilizing 
agencies, so that it may gather the fertility that 
it gives back in service. 

So in the restoration of worn soils we must sim- 
ply study the law of service and compensation, and 
when we do this we find that soils must have or- 
ganic matter in them to furnish food for soil bac- 
teria, so that the bacteria may compound and dis- 
tribute the substances needed for plant food, and 
cleanse the soil of its offensive accumulations. 
And soils must have in them the nitrogen to pro- 
mote the growth of plants and the soil ventilation 
which is secured by drainage, and by incorporat- 
ing into it large quantities of organic matter. 
Organic matter is put into the soil for its use by 
plowing under of manure, cornstalks, straw or 
any green manuring crop, or vegetable, or plant 
residue. 

We have already showed that the first aid to 
the restoration of worn-out soils is through drain- 
age — drainage constructed with the thought of 
soils ventilation, and that the next aid is the secur- 
ing for it an abundance of organic matter. Ma- 
nure is considered by many the best organic mat- 
ter, but as it cannot generally be secured in suf- 
ficient quantities, we must look to other sources 
for supplies. 

The next best source of securing a supply of 



72 THE BUSINESS OF FARMING 

organic matter is the growing of crops like red and 
sweet clover, alfalfa, vetch, rye, hungarian, buck- 
wheat, etc. Clover and alfalfa cannot generally 
be grown on worn-out soils without the use of 
some stimulant like nitrate of soda, limestone, 
etc., to give them a start. If by the use of a 
stimulant we can get a stand of clover and al- 
falfa and plow under the entire clover crop and 
allow the alfalfa to stand for several years, cutting 
it in its proper season, we will have secured a 
valuable supply of organic matter and nitrogen 
for worn-out soils. 

By far the best crops for furnishing organic 
matter for worn-out soils are the vetches, sand, 
winter, or haiiy vetch, sweet clover and rye. 
These crops do not require any stimulant to make 
them take hold upon our worn-out soils and they 
quickly furnish large quantities of organic mat- 
ter. 

For years ^ve have been preaching and practic- 
ing the religion of an abundance of organic mat- 
ter for all our soils, whether fertile, worn, worn- 
out or abandoned. We have not only preached 
and practiced this faith, but have dreamed about 
it, and our dreams have been that the feeding of 
our soils an abundance of organic matter will 
make more fertile our fertile soils, and will so re- 
store to fertility our worn, worn-out and aban- 
doned soils, that we will again be a nation possess- 
ing the fertile soils we possessed when our conti- 
nent was first discovered. 

The a, b, c of a permanent agriculture is a soil 
filled with organic matter, for organic matter was 
the a, b, c of soil building. With it Nature fash- 



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OUR WORN SOILS 73 

ioned and framed the soil into its fertile stage 
and fitted it for the service of the husbandman. 

After Nature had broken up and spread over 
the earth's surface the rock particles found in our 
soils, in the course of time she filled these rock 
particles with all kinds of growing vegetation. 
Much of this vegetation through their root nodules 
and soil bacteria drew from the air into the soil 
for its use the soil's most precious element, nitro- 
gen. And even in this day when the husbandman 
strips the soil of its fertility under the lash of 
continuous crop growing, and without manural 
compensation, until it refuses longer to be driven 
and it is abandoned by its heartless owner, Na- 
ture, with the spirit of the kind Samaritan, pro- 
ceeds to cure its ills with the medicine of organic 
matter. 

A " 'forty-niner" who faced death in crossing 
the barren, death dealing plains of our once called 
Great American Desert, told the author that when 
digging for gold in our Golden State, he once dug 
a shaft into solid granite for a depth of seventy 
feet, and that out of the broken pieces of granite 
taken from the bottom of this shaft and thrown 
upon the top of the dump, there sprang plants 
the genus of which he nor any one else that he 
could find had ever seen before. These plants 
were but the simple tools of Nature by which she 
was seeking to disintegrate these granite particles 
and mix them up with the organic matter pro- 
duced by the plants she fashioned to grow in the 
pieces of granite, that she might prepare a soil 
for man's use in growing crops for his service. 
What a lesson is taught by this observation of 



74 THE BUSINESS OF FARMING 

the old miner. The author thinks of it every time 
he looks at a piece of worn-out soil. Does it not 
remind us that when any soils are no longer sub- 
mitted to cultivation, Nature starts the grow- 
ing of some species of weeds upon them, in time 
to be followed with growing grasses and the trees 
native to the locality where the soils are situated. 
The weeds, grass, and trees furnish the organic 
matter that mixes with the soil, and their roots 
extract from the rock particles of the soil the min- 
erals needed in plant growth and so restores these 
soils again to fertihty. 

From these examples we ought to get the vision 
that the restoration of worn-out soils simply means 
the feeding of them an abundance of organic mat- 
ter furnished by a system of animal and green 
manuring. 

This is not a new system of fertility building 
we are emphasizing. It is " Nature 's Way ' ' which 
has been known to agriculture since God inaugu- 
rated the first business, the business of farming. 
It is the only sure, safe, and solid foundation upon 
which we may build a permanent agriculture. 
There are valuable aids and stimulants like rock 
phosphate, ground limestone, nitrate of soda, pot- 
ash, drainage, soil covering, crop rotation, right 
plowing, proper tillage, and cultivation, some of 
which should be, and some of which must be, em- 
ployed to promote the proper growth and assimi- 
lation of organic matter, but organic matter is 
the keystone that makes the permanent arch of 
agriculture upon which it is made possible to build 
a fertile soil. 

The author's critics in passing judgment upon 



OUE WORN SOILS 75 

this volume will no doubt condemn the repetition 
we have practiced regarding the merits and uses 
of organic matter. Our only excuse for this repe- 
tition is that the importance of organic matter to 
the soils, and permanency of the business of farm- 
ing, demands that its value and necessity be em- 
phasized over and over again until it is so burned 
into the brain of every owner and tiller of the 
soil that its use for fertility building and soil 
restoration will become universal. 

Strange as it may seem, it is nevertheless 
the truth, that so many tillers of the soil, although 
they recognize the importance of organic matter 
in their business, seem utterly helpless to devise 
and put into execution methods by which they can 
obtain it for their sick and ailing soils. 

Much of this is due to effects of environment, 
prejudice engendered by jealousy, lack of capital, 
experience and education, and failures that could 
have been avoided. 

We have shown how environment sets a man 
in his ways of doing things, that might be done 
with safety under certain conditions, that cannot 
be done under changed conditions without failure 
and disaster. We have often given demonstra- 
tions of the use of organic matter in its various 
forms that produced profitable and the finest re- 
sults, yet men would see and acknowledge them 
and yet never did apply the same remedy to their 
own sick and dying soils. 

We have been laughed at for growing crops of 
rye and vetch sown in growing corn at end of cul- 
tivating season, allowing same to grow and cover 
the soil during fall and winter season without 



76 THE BUSINESS OF FARMING 

pasturing, and then plowing under tlie same to- 
gether with the corn stalks in the spring to the 
depth of nine or more inches. We were called 
foolish for not utilizing the pasture that this 
method afforded, yet, by this method of procedure, 
we restored worn-out soil co a fertility that made 
it produce profitable crops and doubled its value. 

We have grown crops of fine alfalfa on worn 
soil in the driest of seasons, which afforded an 
abundance of hay and pasture for all kinds of 
stock tl^roughout the entire summer and fall sea- 
son, when neighbors' fields were bare, and they 
were compelled to have their children to herd 
their cattle along the roadsides that they might 
graze the little dried up blue grass that had es- 
caped the ravages of drouth. Why did they not 
imitate the example set before them? It was for 
some of the reasons stated. 

We make a mistake by not feeding our soils 
enough organic matter. In feeding organic mat- 
ter to soils we must somewhat follow the rules of 
stock feeding. No animal will grow to maturity 
in a first class and profitable condition unless it 
has been constantly fed sufficient and the right 
kind of food. We can not feed to-day and starve 
to-morrow and expect profitable results. It is the 
same with our wearing soils. One dose or feed 
of organic matter every three or four years is 
not sufficient, for organic matter in the soil is 
consumed in plant growth so fast that its supply 
is soon exhausted unless some method has been 
inaugurated upon the farm by which constant 
supplies can be secured to the soil. Therefore 
the system of animal and green manuring we es- 



1 



OUE WORN SOILS 77 

tablish must be such a one that furnishes the or- 
ganic matter in abundance each year. We need 
not fear an over production of organic matter for 
our soils. 

It is easy to provide upon every farm a system 
that will furnish each year an abundance of or- 
ganic matter. When cultivation has been finished 
in the corn crop, sow one and one-half bushels of 
rye to the acre or forty pounds of hairy vetch to 
the acre, or a mixture of one bushel of rye and 
twenty pounds of hairy vetch to the acre, and an 
abundance of the best organic matter obtainable 
will be furnished in time for plowing under in the 
following spring. 

After wheat harvest disc up the stubble and sow 
hungarian and you will have a fine crop of organic 
matter for turning under in the fall to follow with 
wheat. Or if the stubble ground is wanted for 
corn the next season, then disc up and sow to rye 
or hairy vetch, or a mixture of the two. By a 
little thought, a little planning, quite a good deal of 
energy and some work, many ways can be devised 
by which your soils will each year be furnished 
with an abundance of organic matter if you do not 
have sufficient supplies of manure. 

Many contend that one crop of clover every 
three or four years supplies sufficient organic 
matter for our soils. Never was a greater fallacy 
promulgated if the clover crop is handled as it is 
usually handled upon the average farm, which is 
to remove both hay and seed crop and then pasture 
until nothing remains but the root system. The 
root system of clover will furnish too small an 
amount of organic matter so the little you would 



78 THE BUSINESS OF FARMING 

get from one crop in the course of three or four 
years would not suffice, and this fact no doubt ac- 
counts for the fact that where clover is depended 
upon to furnish the fertility of our soils, there 
we have an abundance of worn and worn-out soils, 
in fine, the soils become so that they will no longer 
produce clover in quantity. 

Clover has been chiefly grown upon our soils be- 
cause it was believed to be an organic matter pro- 
ducer and one of the nitrogen gathering plants 
that gathers the nitrogen from the air and stores 
it into the soil. And yet it is a notorious fact 
that all lands that grow clover for a series of 
years become '' clover sick" and refuse to grow 
it at all. Millions of dollars have been invested 
in clover seed which never brought back a penny 
in crop returns. Soil becomes clover sick because 
it has lost its lime and organic matter content, 
chiefly on account of the latter. Restore lime by 
the use of ground limestone, from two to six tons 
per acre, grow green manuring crops like rye, 
vetch and sweet clover, that furnish large quanti- 
ties of organic matter, and you get the soil in con- 
dition again to grow clover. 

The author has seen worn soil that refused to 
grow clover, planted to rye, the rye was sown in 
the corn in August, and the rye and corn stalks all 
plowed under in the spring. After one or two 
crops of the organic matter that this system fur- 
nished had been plowed into this soil, big crops of 
clover was grown upon it again. 

For the past seven years rye has been, with the 
author and numerous of his acquaintances as 
well, one of his chief organic matter producers. 



OUE WORN SOILS 79 

And for this plant as an organic producer, he has 
none but the highest praise. It can be sown in 
the fall in corn or in the open, at a cost of less than 
two dollars per acre for seed, and the labor re- 
quired to sow it is hardly worthy of consideration, 
for the farmer, generally, is not pushed with his 
work at this season. It quickly grows to sufficient 
size to furnish the finest cover crop for winter 
and spring, thus giving the great advantage ob- 
tained to the soil by the use of a cover crop. Then 
it quickly springs up to sufficient height in the 
spring for plowing under in time for the planting 
of the corn crop. It fills the soil for a depth of 
eight or nine inches with a splendid root system 
containing an immense amount of organic matter, 
rendering the soil loose or friable. If the farmer 
thinks he must pasture his stock fields, or is in 
sore need of pasture that he can not supply else- 
where, the author knows of no plant grown on the 
farm that will produce fall, winter and spring 
pasture quicker and so abundantly as rye. And 
yet, in spite of any severe pasturing you may give 
it, its large root system will give an abundance 
of organic matter for the soil. And the best char- 
acteristic of the rye plant is its ability to grow, 
flourish, and produce abundantly in any soil, no 
matter how poor, without aids or stimulants. It 
is truly the best and cheapest green manuring 
crop for the farm, and yet one of the least appre- 
ciated and understood by the farmer. The author 
speaks thus of rye, after years of careful experi- 
ence with it upon his own land and land he has 
rented, and careful observation of the experiences 
of other farmers with the plant. 



80 THE BUSINESS OF FAEMING 

A striking experience and observation came to 
Mm during the season of 1913. Near his home is 
situated a prairie. It is a stretch of Wabash river 
bottom land of a thousand or more acres, sur- 
rounded by hills from the crest of which a view 
of the entire prairie is had. This tract of land 
when first subjected to cultivation was the richest 
of land. It has been farmed for nearly a century 
and because of its virgin richness little attention 
has been paid to its refertilization, and so it has 
become much worn. For years it has been the 
corn belt's choicest com land, and so com, corn, 
and corn, has been grown upon it for several gen- 
erations, and much of it is now fairly in the worn- 
soil class. A few years ago the author rented 
two hundred acres of this land and grew upon it 
peas and sugar corn for his canning factory. In 
the fall of 1911 he planted a large field of this land 
to rye, sowing the i*ye in the sweet corn that he 
grew upon this land. No pasturing was per- 
mitted and in the spring of 1912 the rye and corn 
stalks were plowed under, the plows being set to 
plow nine inches in depth. Some of the rye had 
headed out before it was plowed under. After 
plowing the soil it was properly worked down and 
the whole planted to sweet corn, and a fine crop 
was grown upon it. In the spring of 1913 this 
same land was broken up and planted to field corn 
by the owner. The author did not see this field 
during the season of 1913 until about October 1st, 
when he took a view of the prairie from the crest 
of the hills. Nearly the entire prairie was planted 
to field com, and remember that the character of 
all its soil was the same. As the author viewed 



OUR WORN SOILS 81 

this sea of waving corn a pleasing sight greeted 
his eyes. The com upon this particular field 
stood out prominently above its kind, like the 
sturdy, tall, broad shouldered man, in a crowd of 
men. It was easy to see that it had been furnished 
a fertility from the soil that its neighbor corn 
growing on the same kind of soil had not received, 
that had sent up its vigorous body above its fel- 
lows, and when the husbandman gathered its pro- 
duce it produced far in excess of any corn grow- 
ing upon this prairie. This com had gotten the 
food that made it produce so strikingly and well 
from the organic matter put into this soil by a rye 
crop. 

If we who are engaged in the business of farm- 
ing could only be impressed with the truth that a 
worn or worn-out soil is a hungry soil; that a 
hungry soil like a hungry man or a hungry beast 
can not do normal work or give the best service 
to its owner, we would feed our soils the food that 
would enable them to bear the burden of crop 
growing and the food we would feed them would 
be the food nature designed for them — organic 
matter. 

In feeding our soils organic matter let us not 
forget that the plowing under of the following 
green crops equals tons of barnyard manure to 
the acre as follows: 

Vetch, about forty tons. Rye, twenty tons. 
Alfalfa, thirty tons. Clover, Cow Peas, Soy 
Beans, and Canada Field Peas, about twenty tons, 
thus making it easy for the farmer to get cheaply 
an abundance of organic matter for his soils, and 
thereby push up his soil to a wonderful fertility. 



CHAPTEE V 

THE PROFITS OF THE BUSINESS OF FARMING 

AS a general proposition, does farming pay? 
There can be but one answer to this ques- 
tion and that is "Yes." He who answers *'No" 
overlooks the farmer's living. The vast majority 
of mercantile and other businesses do not pay 
more than a living to their owners, and the same 
is true of the business of farming. But a busi- 
ness that does not pay more than a living is not 
to be despised or looked upon with disfavor. 

We have said that much is to be learned and 
much comfort is to be obtained by comparisons. 
When you are in distress think of your neighbor 
who is in greater distress. If your business is not 
paying what it should, think of your competitor 
who has been thrown into bankruptcy. A business 
that pays a living to its owner can be made to pay 
a surplus. No immense fortunes were ever made 
out of the business of farming, yet a vast number 
of moderate fortunes have been won from the soil, 
and we should not forget that the net income of 
the average farmer is greater than the net income 
of the average city man. A business, therefore, 
that will yield a greater average income to those 
engaged in it than any other business, is to be 
coveted. 

The struggle for existence by a large portion 

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PROFITS OF THE BUSINESS 83 

of our city people under present conditions in our 
cities and towns is a human tragedy, and life's 
pathway is strewn with its victims. You do not 
find this condition on our farms. The farmers 
of our land are not subject to the incessant toil 
and grind that is the lot of so many city men and 
women. 

So the business of farming is not retrograding 
if the majority of our farms are not paying their 
owners more than a living, for by better methods 
of farming, they can be made to produce a nice 
surplus. If the average farm is not paying a liv- 
ing the fault is with the owner and not with the 
farm. Of course the owner may be handicapped 
by lack of capital and other disadvantages, but the 
living and the profit is in the farm and can be 
brought forth by proper effort. To get the best 
out of any business we must devote ourselves as- 
siduously to its every detail with an enthusiasm 
akin to infatuation. 

By conducting the business of farming along 
proper lines the incomes of our farms can be more 
than doubled. 

The average number of bushels of corn grown 
upon our farms does not exceed thirty. Sixty to 
one hundred can be as easily grown. The same 
possibilities for the production of other farm crops 
and produce also obtains. 

As we have said, no man ever made a success 
of any business if he was not so interested in it 
that he could look after its every detail with such 
enthusiasm that he would devote the very best 
work in him to it. 

Those men and women who have accomplished 



84 THE BUSINESS OF FAEMING 

great achievement, not only planned, thought, and 
worked while others slept, but worked with greater 
vim, interest and direction when others worked. 
No man will ever make a success of the business 
of farming unless he is in love with its work. The 
listless, careless, uninterested, lazy farmer will 
always make a failure of the business. 

But the interest of the farmer in his business 
must extend farther than the interest that makes 
him simply a slave to his work, or that interest 
that does not lead him out in thought, the thought* 
that leads him into the mysteries or whys and 
wherefores of the soil, its construction, its bacte- 
rial life, and of plant growth, and the other things 
that enter into soil building and maintenance, and 
the producing and marketing of crops. 

The great inventions and achievements of the 
past were not thought out and constructed and ac- 
complished by the pleasure loving and pleasure 
seeking men, but by men who regarded life as an 
opportunity for the doing of things worth while; 
and in the doing of which they secured and en- 
joyed more pleasure than in the frivolities that 
never satisfy but only aggravate and make more 
acute the desire for pleasure. 

The followers of the creed taught in the catchy 
phrase, "All work and no play makes of Jack a 
dull boy," forget that there is more danger in the 
play that lessens both manhood and womanhood, 
induces idleness with all its evils, than there is in 
plenty of work. 

Work is not a task, but one of the choicest bless- 
ings ever bestowed upon man. The game of life 
without it would be listless, insipid and uninspir- 



PROFITS OF THE BUSINESS 85 

ing, and not worth the living. Nature, in her 
every department, teaches us the doctrine of work 
and its attendant pleasures and delights. Even 
the many-hued, sweet, scent-giving flowers that 
so delight our senses, the pleasing fruits of tree 
and field, and the joy of beautiful landscape and 
open sky are the products of the constant work 
of nature. 

When we achieve, design, and fashion some- 
thing from our work, we receive more pleasure 
from it than we would from any of the frivolous 
amusements of life, and besides, we are strength- 
ened for the fighting of life's battles. 

To make the business of farming successful the 
man behind the business must ever work with 
hands and brains, just as the man behind any 
business must do to make it successful. 

When the farmer works constantly with both 
hands and brain, he does not become like a ma- 
chine that grinds on each day at its same task, 
but he is constantly accomplishing things, and 
seeing the glorious transformation of nature ever 
taking place in the plant and animal life upon the 
farm and in the open sky. If interested in his 
task as he should be, the things that he assists in 
accomplishing with his hands and by the direc- 
tion of his brain, will give the greater pleasure, 
besides making his business profitable. 

There is pleasure as well as profit in the plan- 
ning of a perfect system of drainage and its con- 
struction and effect upon soil, increasing crop 
growth, the proper plowing of the soil and a study 
and application of the best means, methods, and 
appliances for plowing, the study of how to pre- 



86 THE BUSINESS OF FAEMING 

pare the soil for the planting of seed, the selecting 
and study of the best means and appliances for 
planting the seed, planning and putting into exe- 
cution the better methods of cultivation, study- 
ing plant growth and tr^dng to fathom the mys- 
teries of plant growth, and to ascertain why it is 
that two plants growing side by side in the same 
character of soil, kissed by the same sunshine and 
nourished by the same rains, the one will produce 
the food that satisfies and nourishes man, and the 
other, fruit that poisons and kills. 

The study of the nitrogen gathering plants is one 
of the most wonderful and fascinating studies that 
can engage any mind — the plants that have the 
power to draw from the air the most costly and 
precious soil element, nitrogen, and store it into 
the soil for the use of gTowing plants, and thus 
renovate our worn and worn-out soils. 

Too many farmers get into the monotonous 
grind that too many city men get into, — the grind 
that throws about us a state of indifference to 
the good and interesting things of our work ; that 
will not allow us to see the greatness, the vastness, 
the inscrutable mysteries of Nature's ways. Oh! 
if we who are engaged in the business of farming 
would but catch the vision of the wonders lying 
at our very feet, what a transformation would 
result in our business, resulting in increased 
profits. 

Mankind in general go about their daily tasks 
like the driven galley slave and so perform their 
work with like interest, sighing that the working 
hours are so long, rejoicing when they are ended, 



PROFITS OF THE BUSINESS 87 

and learn and enjoy nothing from their work. 
Work under such conditions is, of course, a seem- 
ing curse. But he who goes to his daily task with 
cheerful, hopeful, investigating spirit, who seeks 
for knowledge and can see the mystery of God in 
the common clay, the growing plants, and insect 
life, who works not only for the money that will 
provide him with the necessities of life, but for 
the pleasure that it brings, has caught the true 
vision of life and right living, and thrice happy 
is he, for he has found the secret of right and 
profitable living. 

The man with a vision plants a fruit tree, and 
there is pictured upon the canvas of his mind the 
full grown, developed tree, laden with the fruit 
of its kind, painted and flavored with the richest 
colors and most delicious extracts, but he knows 
that before that picture can become a reality, his 
hand must give that tree a fertile soil, the best 
cultivation, a scientific trimming and spraying for 
years. But Nature thus assisted, does her part, 
and the tree, as the years go by, develops and in 
time produces its perfect fruit and rewards the 
labor of the tender. But the tender took the 
greatest delight in his work, knowing that the time 
would come when his labor would bear its reward. 
His work was a work worth while, and the com- 
munity in which he lived was made better by his 
work, for, he who does nothing more than plant 
a tree by the wayside and tends it to maturity, has 
done more for mankind than he who sits and 
dreams and talks great things of accomplishment, 
but does not a thing to bring them about ; or even 



88 THE BUSINESS OP FARMING 

he who ever works at his task with stolid indiffer- 
ence to its importance or unmindful of its pleas- 
ures. 

If the farmer gets the true vision of farming and 
sets out to make it a reality, he will surely find the 
business of farming a most profitable one. He 
will whip the loafing acres of his farm into work 
that will make them produce a hundred fold. The 
best breeds of stock will be found upon his farm. 
He will install labor-saving and pleasure-giving 
appliances. Farm surroundings will be made at- 
tractive, and he will experience the true joy of 
living. The delights of fertile fields with their bur- 
den of profitable produce will be his, prosperity 
will abound, and though he may not accumulate 
the large fortune, yet his business will give him 
the profit that gives comfort, happiness and nec- 
essary ease, with the proper environments for 
the right living and growth of himself and family, 
and the business that does this is, after all that 
can be said, the best and most profitable one in 
which any man can engage. 




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CHAPTEE VI 

EQUIPMENTS NECESSARY FOR CARRYING ON THE 
BUSINESS OF FARMING 

TO engage in the manufacturing business it is 
essential that one has a plant or building 
equipped with the necessary machinery, and pos- 
sessed of the raw materials, so that the products 
of the manufacturing concern can be prepared for 
market, and the buildings and machinery must be 
such that can work up the raw material so that the 
owner can prepare and put on the market a good 
product at a reasonable price and yet make a 
profit. 

The farm is the farmer's manufacturing plant. 
His chief raw material is the soil. His machinery 
is his live stock and farm machinery necessary to 
run his plant. He and his hired men are the work- 
men who work up the raw material into crops and 
the other products of his plant. 

The farm is as much of a manufacturing plant as 
a steel or iron works, and to yield its owner a 
profit, must be managed and worked under a busi- 
ness system as complete in its detail and perfec- 
tion as any by which our most successful manu- 
facturing plants are managed and operated. But 
a manufacturing plant, to be successful, must be 
located favorably as to markets and of easy access 
to raw materials. A plate-glass factory in the 

89 



90 THE BUSINESS OF FARMING 

Sahara Desert, while accessible to good polishing 
sands, and sands from which good glass might 
perhaps be made, yet it would be so remote from 
markets for the finished product, and for the se- 
curing of other materials that go into the manu- 
facture of plate-glass, that it would be a miserable 
failure. 

Not every farm is favorably situated as to mar- 
kets for all the products that can be produced upon 
the farm. A farm far removed from a railroad 
or consuming center might produce the finest fruit 
and vegetables that can be grown, but what profit 
would there be in growing such if there be not an 
accessible market? 

The successful farmer considers these things 
and so produces those products upon his farm that 
can be disposed of to advantage or profit. The 
staple crops of corn, wheat, oats and live stock, 
can be marketed from most any farm, no matter 
where located, yet in the marketing of these prod- 
ucts a greater profit is secured if the farm be in 
easy access to the market. 

We who already own our farms must make the 
best of our situations and grow such crops, or 
produce such fann products as we can market 
to the best advantage and profit, and which will 
grow, or can be produced upon our soils. Of 
course we should grow the crops that fit the soil, 
yet it is wonderful how many different crops 
will fit upon most any soil. If we are in the mar- 
ket for a farm, then we should determine the 
kind of farming in which we wish to engage, and 
buy the farm that will not only produce them, but 
from which they can be marketed to the best ad- 



EQUIPMENTS NECESSARY 91 

vantage and profit. Assuming that we own our 
farms, liow are we to make them successful, and 
what equipments are necessary to that end? 

The very foundation and the success of the busi- 
ness of farming is based upon the soil. It is the 
raw material from which farm products are to be 
fashioned. If the soil be unproductive, shorn of 
its fertility, then we only produce the limited 
amounts of farm products that scarcely, and in 
many instances, do not pay the cost of production, 
and so the business of farming such soils becomes 
a failure. 

And if our soils even be so fertile that they will 
produce products that pay a profit, yet if we farm 
such soils for a series of years without a thought 
or action towards doing those things that maintain 
soil fertility, we will soon pass them into the class 
that does not pay a profit. Therefore, that thing 
which is essential to the success of the business 
of farming should receive our most careful con- 
sideration, and yet we have shown how it has been 
neglected in the past. When our soils were new, 
or at the time they were first submitted to the task 
of growing crops, they were so rich in fertility, 
and free from weed and insect pest, that they 
would grow bumper crops with little effort on the 
part of the husbandman. The pioneer could plant 
his corn in a shallow plowed soil between the 
stumps of his newly cleared ground, or in the few 
inches of upturned prairie sod, give it a little 
cultivation, and be assured of an enormous crop. 
Such a system of planting and cultivation in our 
soils that have been in cultivation for a half cen- 
tury or more, would mean utter crop failure. 



92 THE BUSINESS OF FARMING 

Nearly forty years ago the author assisted in 
clearing a heavy growth of timber from parts of 
rich Indiana timber soil. It was a hard, labo- 
rious task to fit it for the plow the first time, and 
not only hard and laborious, but a trying, exasper- 
ating task, to plow the small area of soil not oc- 
cupied by the tree stumps and roots, which almost 
occupied the entire soil, but it was only necessary 
to sufficiently scratch the soil to cover the seed. 
However, the plowing of the soil under these con- 
ditions was attended with such discomforts and 
exasperating difficulties, as would cause a young 
man engaged in the task to dream of a city life 
and to abandon the farm. 

In the course of time the stumps and the roots 
decayed and were removed and the soil was sub- 
jected to years of crop growing with little heed 
being paid to soil fertilization or the maintenance 
of soil fertility, and so it took less than a genera- 
tion to put them into the worn soil class. 

A short time ago it was the author's privilege 
to tramp over the fields he had helped to clear of 
their forest growth nearly a half century ago, and 
to him it was a pathetic sight to behold their 
wasted fertility, as evidenced by their stunted 
crop growth. If these soils had been farmed un- 
der the business system that obtains in our most 
successful manufacturing plants and business 
houses, their fertility would have been kept up 
and they would to-day be as rich in plant food ele- 
ments as when first rescued from the wilderness 
of timber growth. 

That farm products can be produced at a profit, 



EQUIPMENTS NECESSAEY 93 

and at the same time the soil fertility be main- 
tained and even increased, is an established fact, 
and is no longer open to serious discussion, but 
it can not be done by the old methods of farming 
which have been mostly in vogue in this land of 
ours, and by which our soils have become worn 
and worn-out. 

The fact that when our soils were new and were 
covered with the wilderness of timber and prairie 
growth, it required brawn rather than brains to 
subdue them and bring them into cultivation, and 
the further fact that the simple covering of seed 
produced large crops without intensive cultiva- 
tion, has led to an environment upon the farm by 
which the study of the needs of the soil was neg- 
lected; for, as shown, the soil seemed to be able 
for several generations to produce the crops that 
pay the profit without anything being done to feed 
it, that fertility might be maintained and in- 
creased ; but in process of time the fertility of the 
soil was farmed out, and we have already shown 
that the farmers of our country, when they were 
brought face to face with this condition, simply 
moved on and preempted new lands and subdued 
them to the same process of cultivation and soil 
exhaustion. But now, when nearly all our virgin 
soil has been preempted, we are compelled to do 
the things that will restore fertility to our soils 
or perish. 

If the farm is a manufacturing plant and the 
soil is the raw material out of which is shaped 
and fashioned the farm's finished products, it is 
therefore evident that the soil must be at its best 



94 THE BUSINESS OF FARMING 

or farm products of market value, and in abun- 
dance, cannot be manufactured or produced from 
it. 

He who owns this manufacturing plant, the 
farm, must have a good working soil rich in the 
elements capable of producing crops in abundance 
and at a price that will make this manufacturing 
plant pay dividends. The soil thus becomes the 
farmer's chief consideration and concern. If the 
farmer is wise and has a business head, he will 
see to it that his soil fertility is not only conserved, 
but is increased. When the farmer realizes that 
the fertility of this soil is the basis of his pros- 
perity, his happiness, his existence, then he be- 
comes a true disciple of the business of farming, 
not impregnated with that greed and avarice that 
plunders and robs the soil, but imbued with the 
spirit that recognizes that soil is a living thing and 
must be fed and groomed as we feed and groom 
our beloved domestic animals. 

Had not greed and avarice taken possession of 
the farmer of the past, agriculture would have 
never known such a thing as worn and worn-out 
soil or the abandoned farm. The killing of the 
fabled goose that laid the golden egg in order to 
find the mass of gold supposed to be hidden in the 
goose, and secure it all at once, has had its exem- 
plification in the constant pushing of the soil's pro- 
duction to the limit of its power, year after year, 
for a half century or more, without a thought of 
conservation or feeding so as to maintain or in- 
crease its power to produce crops. 

The soil, then, being the very foundation and the 
chief asset of the business of farming, it should 



EQUIPMENTS NECESSARY 95 

be treated so as to make it produce the products 
in quantity that make the business of farming a 
manufacturing concern that pays dividends. 

We have said that some of the essentials of the 
successful manufacturing plant are the buildings 
and the proper machinery and equipments to man- 
ufacture the finished products, but these are use- 
less unless the raw material that goes into the 
structure of the finished product is available and 
at a price which, plus the expense of the manufac- 
turing, will afford a profit. There is yet another 
item, without which the foregoing will be useless, 
and that is the element of labor, the skilled and 
unskilled workmen that constitute the force or 
the life and energy that moves the mechanism of 
the entire plant and pushes to completion the 
finished product. 

In the business of farming, the home, the barn, 
out-buildings and open sky are the buildings ; the 
plows, the harness, and other farm implements 
are the machinery of the farming plant ; and the 
seed and grains for planting, the live stock and 
the soil, are the raw materials to be worked up 
into the finished products of the farm. All the 
essentials of the manufacturing plant mentioned 
are necessary for the production of the finished 
product, a lack of any prevents production. A 
poor quality of either machinery, appliances, la- 
bor, or raw material, means a poor or shoddily 
finished product. And the same is true of the 
business of farming. 

The buildings must be sufficient to house the 
working man and the live stock; the soil must be 
of the quality that will produce its maximum; the 



96 THE BUSINESS OF FARMING 

seeds and grain that will germinate with vitality 
and produce the best of their kind; and the live 
stock that have health, pedigree, breeding, that 
measure up to the perfection of their kind. But 
after all, there is a genius or guiding hand back 
of the manufacturing plant that was responsible 
for its conception, its being, its growth, and its 
continuing prosperity. So must there be a genius 
or the guiding hand behind the business of farm- 
ing, which is the hand that conserves the fertility 
and governs the destiny of every part and portion 
of the farm. 

In most manufacturing plants, exact costs and 
profits can be figured, but not so with the busi- 
ness of farming, for we cannot control the condi- 
tions that will give us the proper rain and sun- 
shine to germinate the seed and produce the 
crops, nor can we know the extent of the horde of 
insects and other pests that may sweep down upon 
our farms, the combating of which adds largely 
to the cost of production, and ofttimes cannot be 
combated, which results in either a partial or 
total destruction of our crops. 

Neither can standardization be put into effect 
upon the farm as it is in the factory. While the 
business has as many of the uncertainties as any 
other business, yet scientific farming is fast 
eliminating many of these uncertainties. The ef- 
fect of drought is being overcome. The breeding 
of seeds and animals is to a great extent mak- 
ing standards of grain and stock, so that when we 
plant seeds of a certain kind, or breed our stock 
to certain breeds, we may depend upon nature 
reproducing in kind. 



EQUIPMENTS NECESSARY 97 

To him who already owns his farm, no good 
purpose can be subserved by entering into any 
scientific discussion of the formation and com- 
position of soils. All that he who is engaged in 
the business of farming needs to know about the 
foundation or composition of soils, is that one 
class is composed of an abundance of small rock 
particles in which are locked up the soil minerals 
accompanied with little vegetable or organic mat- 
ter, known as our sandy soils; another class has 
an abundance of decomposed rocks containing 
aluminous minerals, known as our clay soils, and 
another has the abundance of vegetable or or- 
ganic matter known as our muck soils. 

Air, sunlight and water, entering into and com- 
ing in contact with these soils produce the con- 
dition essential to plant growth. That some of 
these soils do not produce an abundant crop 
growth, is due to the lack of some essential plant 
food element which must be supplied. 

If farmers would become Nature students and 
would study her ways and her doings, they would 
make a greater success of the business of farm- 
ing, for if they would do this, they would learn 
the simple lesson that when Nature fashioned the 
soil she first took the rock particles of the soil, 
started the vegetable growth into them, which not 
only dissolved the mineral elements locked up 
in the rock of the soil, but filled it with vegetable 
and organic matter, all of which is the food upon 
which plants feed, and are the means of letting 
air into the soil that plants may perform the nec- 
essary function of breathing. 

Plenty of air, moisture, sunlight, mineral and 



98 THE BUSINESS OF FARMING 

organic matter make the fertile soil, and produce 
the condition essential to healthy, abundant plant 
growth. If this be true, then to make our soils 
fertile and put them upon a profitable basis for 
the successful conduct of the business of farm- 
ing, is to learn to do the things that will bring 
about these conditions. 

God furnishes us with plenty of air and sun- 
shine, and we need not give ourselves any concern 
about these elements, except to ascertain how to 
get the air into the soil. Sunlight coming into 
contact with the soil produces the warmth neces- 
sary to wake up and bring into action the sleeping 
life of the seed. Getting the air into the soil is 
the simple process of ditching the soil and filling 
it with organic matter; both these things let into 
the soil an abundance of air if done in the proper 
manner. 

We must know our soils. This knowledge is 
the very foundation of the success of the business 
of farming. Hosts of farmers in numbers as the 
sands of the sea have spent their lives upon the 
soils of Motlier Earth, and even in their last days 
were as ignorant of the needs and possibilities of 
their soils, and the correct methods of handling 
them, as little children. To prove this statement 
we have but to point to the world's worn, worn- 
out and abandoned farms which have chiefly been 
owned by this class of men. 

The injunction has come ringing down through 
the ages, *'Man, know thyself." If then the soil 
IS the very foundation of man's existence here 
on earth, it is as equally important that men 
should know their soils, that they may ascertain 



EQUIPMENTS NECESSAEY 99 

their wants and their needs and learn how to 
make them produce the paying crops. 

So to carry on successfully the business of 
farming, the equipment of a good fertile soil is 
the first requisite. There is no substitute for it. 
And not only you who are about to engage in the 
business, but you who are already in the business, 
must get this fact so imbedded in your minds that 
the study of the soil and the best methods of main- 
taining and increasing its fertility, becomes with 
you a '^ ruling passion," for there is no other way 
to make a success of the business of farming 
upon our farm lands that have been subjected to 
cultivation for twenty-five or more years. 

The next necessary equipments to secure suc- 
cess in the business of farming are, as already 
stated, sufficient buildings to properly house your 
family and your stock, the very best modern la- 
bor-saving farm implements and machinery, 
plenty of draft giving horses and mules, or other 
power for moving implements and machinery, 
sufficient money making breeds of stock, and suf- 
ficient money to finance farming operations. 

But after all, is it not the ''man behind the 
gun" that counts in any battle? The govern- 
ment furnishes the equipment for warfare, the 
generals plan the lines of attack and start the 
battle, but the success of the battle depends 
largely upon the ''man behind the gun." If he 
fails in his duty, either from want of attention, 
action, or competency, defeat and rout results. 
In the business of farming old Mother Nature, 
human skill and invention furnish the chief 
equipment for carrying on the business, the 



100 THE BUSINESS OF FARMING 

knowledge furnished by educational processes and 
experience is the general that directs the line of 
action or attack, but the man behind the plow is 
responsible for the success of the business. If 
hf fails in his duty for want of attention, action 
or competency, defeat and rout results. 

While no elaborate equipment is necessary for 
the successful carrying on of the business of farm- 
ing, yet the equipment must be sufficient to secure 
even moderate success. There are many men be- 
hind the plow who hammer out success with 
limited equipment, and these are the men we 
should strive to emulate, for they give hope to 
the poorly equipped farmer and the more inspira- 
tion to those who are well equipped for the busi- 
ness. 

In this chapter little has been said about the 
capital or money requisite to cany on the busi- 
ness of farming, and the reason for this omission, 
for it is one of the important equipments neces- 
sary for carrying on the business, is that we have 
reserved it for special discussion in the chapter 
pertaining to farm credits. 




8d 



CHAPTER VII 

NECESSARY PREPAEATIOl^ FOR THE BUSINESS OP 
FARMING 

ACCORDING to government investigations 
forty per cent, of the farmers of the coun- 
try believe that the business of farming can only 
be learned by personal experience, and they take 
no stock in farmers' institutes, demonstration 
agents, farm papers or Department of Agricul- 
ture publication as aids in the business of farm- 
ing. 

We have ever been taught from our youth that 
experience is the best teacher, but we forget that 
experience "is the extract of suffering," that it 
is the name given to our follies. The chief trou- 
ble with most of us is we will not learn from the 
suffering of another, we must suffer ourselves. 
Experience is of no value unless it is made to 
illuminate the path we are yet to tread. We who 
say we can learn only from our own experiences, 
should remember the words of Benjamin Frank- 
lin who said that "Experience is a dear school 
but fools will learn in no other way and scarce 
in that." 

There has been such a changed condition in the 
character of our soils and the methods of farming 
necessary to bring success that it is the height of 
folly to try to conduct much of the business of 

101 



102 THE BUSINESS OF FAEMING 

farming on our experience of even ten years ago. 
He is the wise man who not only gains wisdom 
from his own experience, but also from the ex- 
perience of others. Experience at its best is a 
mighty slow and expensive teacher, and we are 
staking too much when we depend for our learn- 
ing and conduct upon it. It has been aptly said 
that ''by experience we find out a short way by 
long wandering." But it was also well said that 
''learning teacheth more in one year than ex- 
perience in twenty. ' ' 

He is the wise farmer who considers the re- 
sults of his own experience with the results of 
the experiences of others and is able to gather 
from the whole, methods of safe conduct for his 
farm operations. It is as true to-day that there 
is safety in a multitude of counselors, as it was 
when the words were uttered by Solomon, the 
wisest of men. Supposing a man wishing to be 
a lawyer or a physician would say "Away with 
the experience and teaching of those lawyers and 
doctors who have recorded their knowledge of 
their professions in the volumes they have 
written, I will none of them. I will learn how to 
successfully practice these great professions by 
my personal experience alone." How far along 
the roads of these professions would he travel? 
He would fall by the wayside ere he started. 
The man to be successful in these professions 
must first become a student and spend years of 
hard, weary, discouraging labor in the study of 
the experiences of the great lights of the profes- 
sion as recorded in the imperishable volumes they 
have written for the great benefit of mankind. 



NECESSAEY PREPARATION 103 

When lie has mastered these he is ready to add to 
his knowledge the knowledge gained by his own 
experience. He is then duly qualified to work and 
successfully garner in the fields of law and medi- 
cine. 

The same is as true of the business of farming. 
The farmer of the past scorned the study of 
farming as taught by book, history, chemistry or 
any scientific method. He had at his command 
a soil rich in all the elements of fertility for na- 
ture had made it so, and it came into his posses- 
sion in its virgin richness. He had but to plant 
the seed and give the growing plants but little 
cultivation, and they produced a burden of crops, 
and unfortunately for the business of farming, 
this process could be and was continued for a 
generation or more — at least long enough to im- 
bue the farmer of the past w4th the false notion 
that any one could farm, and that no scientific 
knowledge was required upon the part of the 
farmer. It was this very state of affairs that has 
led to the plunder and exhaustion of our soils, 
that has made the abandoned, worn and worn-out 
farm a part of our farm economics. 

But the day of reckoning has come. We of this 
generation are reaping the follies perpetrated by 
our pioneer farmers. We find the fertility of 
our soils waning or already exhausted. We are 
confronted by "a condition and not a theory." 
To continue in the way our father farmers cul- 
tivated their farms means death and decay just 
as certain as death and decay is written on every 
living thing. 

We must admit that we are facing a serious 



104 THE BUSINESS OF FARMING 

agricultural condition and not a theory. Any one 
with observing eye can see it. In every part and 
portion of our country we stand in the midst of 
worn and worn-out soils — soils that no longer 
produce paying crops. The abandoned farm is a 
part of our agricultural economy, and these worn- 
out abandoned soils are not safe investments if 
farmed by the same methods that made them 
worn and worn-out, and which led to their aban- 
donment. 

We have said that if our worn soils were but 
possessed of tongues, their treatment by which 
they have become worn-out, has been enough to 
unloosen them and make them speak with in- 
dignation. But although these soils are with- 
out the power of speech, they have by actions that 
speak louder than fiery words, shown their re- 
sentment and wrathful feelings. They have ex- 
pressed their indignation by stunted crop growth, 
the eroding away by washing rains and blowing 
winds and refusing to grow crops that pay the 
cost of production. And yet some of these speech- 
less, indignant soils are by their owners fed with 
food that does not satisfy, but only intensifies and 
makes more acute their present condition. And 
their condition is further aggravated by being 
cultivated under the mistaken notion promulgated 
by our government, that their fertility has not 
been exhausted. 

Business is nothing more than being industri- 
ously engaged in the affairs of some occupation 
from which we derive our support. 

Generally we select our business in early life 
and more or less attempt to qualify ourselves for 



NECESSAEY PEEPAEATION 105 

it. Our selection of a business is governed by 
circumstances, desires, direction, talent, or birth. 
Many of us are born into a business. The ma- 
jority of men engaged in the business of farming 
were born into it. A few take it up from desire, 
direction or talent. And this has been true in 
every age, and accounts for the fact that in the 
past there has been so little preparation for the 
carrying on of the business upon the part of those 
who have been engaged in it. The farmer boy 
born upon the farm, who did not catch a vision 
of the business of city life, simply drifted into 
the footsteps of his father who likewise had 
drifted into the business of farming, and learned 
from him the lesson of the business. The edu- 
cation that he secured from the schools he attended 
was not along the line of farming, for the train- 
ing for the business of farming has had no place 
in the curriculum of the schools of the past, and 
too often the education he secured from the com- 
mon schools was scarcely enough for the simple 
transactions of life. If, in getting his education, 
he caught no other vision of business life, he 
stayed upon the farm and learned its lessons from 
the school of "the way father did it." If 
father's way was the right way, and sad to say, 
generally it was not, he became as proficient as 
father, and if it was his lot to farm rich virgin 
soil, or soil that had not lost its fertility, he made 
a success from a viewpoint of dollars and cents. 
But the environment of the father became the 
environment of the son, and if the father had the 
broad vision of the business of farming, the son 
caught it also. Farm practices were transmitted 



106 THE BUSINESS OF FARMING 

from father to son, and if tliey were bad, and un- 
fortunately for the business of fanning many of 
them were, the business suffered. 

It is said that in the business world the spirit 
of the times is scientific efficiency. The well 
managed manufacturing plant installs that ma- 
chinery and eliminates that cost of labor and 
materials which not only increases efficiency but 
lowers the cost of the finished product, and then 
makes all of those methods of transportation and 
marketing that will enable the manufactured 
product to afford a profit. 

Scientific efficiency must become the paramount 
thing in the business of farming. Therefore, the 
old notion that any body can farm, must be dis- 
carded and thrown upon the scrap heap of ''im- 
practical ideas." Farming is a business re- 
quiring as much brains and skill to successfully 
conduct it as it does to successfully conduct any 
other business or profession. 

We have now reached that age in our agricul- 
tural history when our country no longer feeds 
Europe, no, not even itself. For in the year 1912, 
with its boasted four billion of a crop yield, 
pointed to by our National Agricultural Depart- 
ment with such swelling pride, less than five per 
cent, of our total exports consisted of foodstuffs 
in crude conditions and food animals. 

We have imported a dollar and fifteen cents 
worth of food for every dollar's worth we have 
exported, whether in a crude or manufactured 
state. Fifteen years ago two-thirds of our ex- 
ports were agricultural products. And in the year 
1912 but one State east of the Mississippi River 




HOW SHALL WE EDUCATE HER? 

Shall we educate her along the line of Farm Domestic Science, 
that she maj' become the helpful wife of the "Farmer of To- 
morrow"? Or shall we give her the insipid education that will 
unfit her for the serious and better duties of life, and drive her 
from the farm? 



NECESSARY PREPARATION 107 

produced enougli wheat for its bread, and Ohio, 
Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Missouri and Iowa 
had to import wheat for their bread. For a pe- 
riod of four years Iowa had grown less wheat 
than her people have eaten. And yet we boast 
of agricultural greatness. 

This then is an opportune time for us engaged 
in the business of farming to take an inventory 
to ascertain what preparations are necessary for 
the proper conduct of our business and also ask 
ourselves are we profitably conserving our raw 
material? Are we profitably utilizing our by- 
products and converting them into use and 
wealth? In fine, are we getting the very best out 
of our business? Does our business pay? If it 
does not do these things, can we bring about the 
achievement of these ends and how? 

The author is sure that they cannot be brought 
about by the old practices of farming which have 
been the sole responsibility for our worn and 
worn-out and abandoned soils. There must be 
better preparation upon the part of those engaged 
in, or who are about to engage in, the business of 
farming. 

Those who are already harnessed up to the 
business of farming must see the vision of bet- 
ter farming. They must lay aside the prejudices 
and environments that have been handed down 
and thrown around them by their fathers, re- 
membering that their fathers, perhaps, meant 
well, because they had rich virgin soil at their 
disposal and did not see the needs of soil con- 
servation, and enrichment as we now see it. 

While those who are engaged in the business 



108 THE BUSINESS OF FARMING 

of farming can not go and take the courses of 
our agricultural colleges, yet the opportunities for 
learning better farming are now brought to their 
very doors by the literature of our agricultural 
experiment stations, farm journals, and the best 
agricultural books written by practical men who 
have lived close to the soil studying its whims and 
its needs, and who give a ''well digested system 
of an experienced and successful farmer who has 
seen and practised all that he records. ' ' 

The experiences of men who are doing things in 
the business of farming, showing its mistakes of 
the past and its possibilities, are being recorded 
every day and for little money can be secured 
by every one engaged in the business of farming. 
And they can indeed be made to illuminate the 
path we are yet to tread. 

The young men and women who are thinking 
of making the business of farming their life work, 
have such opportunities for learning and master- 
ing the business never possessed by the young 
men and women of a generation ago. The young 
men and women of the past were educated away 
from the farm. The curriculum of the schools 
did not even hint at agricultural education. The 
ideals of the professions and city business were 
held up before them as the right ones to be ob- 
tained and they caught no visions of the business 
of farming. 

We have seen our educational mistakes and are 
fast correcting them. Our schools and colleges 
are giving agricultural training and education a 
prominent place in their curricula. 

The general government and each state govern- 



NECESSARY PREPARATION 109 

ment and corporations are appropriating large 
sums of money to carry on the mighty work of 
agricultural education, and if this work is con- 
tinued with its present enthusiasm, the day is not 
far distant when the worn, worn-out and aban- 
doned soils will be no longer our possessions, but 
simply matters of history. 

Therefore, the conclusion of the whole matter 
of preparation for the business of farming is 
more education. The farmer of the future must 
be educated along the lines of scientific agricul- 
ture or the nation will perish, for no nation can 
live without a fertile soil. But education with- 
out practice availeth nothing. We have reached 
that period in our agricultural history where we 
must not only educate but we must think, plan 
and put into action. 

In the matter of educating the men past the 
middle age engaged in the business of farming, 
we are met with the perplexing problem of stolid 
indifference to the benefits to be derived from 
agricultural education. The adage that "you 
can not teach an old dog new tricks" is strongly 
exemplified in this class of farmers. They 
learned processes and methods of farming under 
conditions that made these processes and methods 
fairly successful, for the soil was favorable to 
their adaptation. But now under changed soil 
conditions these men resent and will not adopt the 
processes and methods necessary for the success- 
ful cultivation of our soils as we now find them, 
simply because an environment has cast over 
these men the magic spell of prejudice and inac- 
tion. About all we can do with this class is to 



110 THE BUSINESS OF FARMING 

exclaim, '^Ephraim is joined to idols: let him 
alone." Our hope lies in ''the farmer of to- 
morrow," our young men and women. While 
we can do much with the middle aged men and 
women engaged in the business of farming, our 
chief hope is with the young men and women, and 
they are already being intensely interested in 
this education, for thousands of them in all parts 
of our country are not only receiving this educa- 
tion, but are putting it into practice, and the re- 
sults of this educating process are astounding, 
for in Indiana and other com states, yields of 
corn have been increased from twenty to sixty, 
one hundred or more bushels to the acre, and even 
in Texas, not considered strictly in the corn belt, 
the average yield of com per acre has been in- 
creased from sixteen bushels to fifty-one bushels, 
and their cotton crop has been increased from 
one-third of a bale to one and four-hundredths 
bales to the acre, all accomplished by these young 
men and women. Mighty, then, is agricultural 
education and training, and it must be set down 
as the main thing necessary in the preparation 
for the business of farming. 










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CHAPTER VIII 

PUTTIKG THE SOIL IN CONDITION FOB CABRYING ON 
THE BUSINESS OF FARMING 

HAVING made the necessary preparation for 
carrying on the business of farming, and 
possessing the necessary equipment for the busi- 
ness, the next step is the putting of the soil in 
condition for the breaking plow. This means that 
the soil must be cleared and drained. In the tim- 
ber belt the great majority of our soils have al- 
ready been cleared of their timber growth and are 
under cultivation. The uncleared soils of Amer- 
ica suitable for cultivation, while not of vast area, 
present the perplexing problems of clearing, for 
to remove from them the stumps and tree growth 
means the expenditure of brawn and money. In 
the Michigan and Wisconsin cut-over pine and 
hardwood districts, we have the pine stumps that 
never rot, which can only be successfully removed 
by the power of the stump puller. And the hard- 
wood stumps and second growth of timber must 
mainly be removed by the same power, so the 
cost of clearing each acre of said lands for the 
plow is often as much as $50. 

It would be equally expensive to clear hard- 
wood lands if the stumps were not generally al- 
lowed to rot out. In many sections of our coun- 
try the soils are covered with the glacial drift of 

111 



112 THE BUSINESS OF FAKMING 

rocks that require strength and money to remove. 
If any of these lands are swampy, the additional 
expense of drainage must be applied to them. In 
fine, both our new timber and prairie lands must 
be drained before they are fit for cultivation. 

Our soils which have been subjected to cultiva- 
tion for a period of years, if care has not been 
used to keep them filled with organic matter, be- 
come compact, and so are not sufficiently ven- 
tilated for the successful growing of crops in 
them. It is necessary that these soils be ditched 
so that ventilation for the soil be secured. It is 
now a settled fact that plant roots breathe; that 
free oxygen must reach them or the plants perish. 
Oxygen must freely reach the seed in the soil or 
we do not get the healthy growth. Soil ventila- 
tion produces the necessary nitrates in the soil 
and prevents also their destruction. 

The soil must be properly ventilated that soil 
bacteria may live and perform their function of 
changing the nitrogen of decaying organic mat- 
ter into a form suitable for plant food. Drain- 
age is one of the chief aids to accomplish this end. 
Drainage conserves moisture, promotes soil 
ventilation and gives soil the proper temperature. 

In the restoration of worn and worn-out soils 
drainage in one of the main remedies that must 
be employed. And here at this point it is well 
for a brief period to wait upon the soil doctor 
and get his ideas of putting the soil in condition 
for the carrying on of the business of farming. 

When our bodies become diseased we call the 
physician who, in our judgment, ''has rare skill 
in diagnostics,'* who by critical perception and 



PUTTING THE SOIL IN CONDITION 113 

scrutiny discovers signs and symptoms upon 
which he bases his judgment as to the disease 
that has made us sick, and the remedy to be ap- 
plied. 

The same principle must be applied to the 
diagnosis of our soils which have lost their crop 
producing power, to ascertain the nature and ex- 
tent of its ills and the remedy to be applied. 

The skilled physician knows the very structure 
of the human body and the tissues that make it 
up. He knows its origin, the conditions that 
enhance or retard its growth, and the food needed 
to sustain it. It would therefore seem that he 
who seeks to cure the diseases of our worn and 
worn-out soils must possess some skill as a ''soil 
doctor"; that he should know the very origin of 
soil; that soil is that upper stratum of the earth's 
surface composed of substances which furnish 
food for plant growth ; that soil was produced or 
made up by the wearing down or decay and dis- 
solution of rocks, the washing of sand and decay 
of vegetable or organic matter; and he too must 
know the food it needs to make it fertile. 

The writer does not believe that in order to be- 
come a ''soil doctor" it is necessary that one 
should become skilled in the science of chemistry 
or other sciences. Rather he should become the 
student of Nature, sit at her feet and observe 
her ways. 

While the study of the sciences may teach us 
that the three elements of potash, phosphorus 
and nitrogen are necessary to make fertile soils ; 
that these elements are vitally necessary because 
they increase the quality, fruitfulness, early ma- 



114 THE BUSINESS OF FAEMING 

'turity and growth of plants ; that nitrogen is the 
"most precious, the most important and the most 
costly," and the element soonest farmed out of 
our soils, yet when we become nature students, 
use our brains, closely observe the structure of 
soils, we find that the new, rich organic soils just 
reclaimed from the wilderness of tree and plant 
growth are filled with decayed and decaying trees, 
underbrush, roots and grasses; that these sub- 
stances decaying, become the organic matter of 
the soil upon which the soil bacteria feed, and 
these substances decayed, or what is left of them 
after the decaying process, become the humus of 
the soil, thus making up and constituting two soil 
elements so necessary to make it fertile and bear 
its burden of crops. 

The nature student when called upon to act 
in the capacity of ''soil doctor" and to diagnose 
sick soils — soils that no longer produce paying 
crops, like the skilled physician, quickly perceives 
that these sick, worn, and worn-out soils, have 
become sick because their supplies of organic 
matter, humus and nitrogen, have been consumed. 
He discovers that while they may possess in 
available form the mineral elements necessary 
for the proper working of their functions, yet 
they lack the elements of organic matter, humus 
and nitrogen in sufficient quantities so that they 
will become a favorable home for soil bacteria 
who compound plant food so that plants may not 
only grow, and bear their burden of crops, but 
will also release and make available these mineral 
elements in the soil to furnish food for future 
plant growth. 



PUTTING THE SOIL IN CONDITION 115 

After all that can be said "soil doctoring" is 
but the application of simple common sense. We 
must use our ''thinkers" and faculties of observa- 
tion. "When we do this we will catch on to Na- 
ture's ways of soil building and soil restoration, 
and, imitating her, we will not only maintain soil 
fertility, but will restore our bleak, barren soils, 
made so by sordid tillage. Acting then along this 
line, he who runs must read in Nature 's Book the 
living truth that when Nature built the original 
soil she used a lavish supply of organic matter 
in its construction. She took the rock particles 
of the soil which contained the mineral elements 
of phosphorus, potassium, magnesium, calcium, 
iron, etc., and by the growth of certain plants, 
grasses and trees in the soil, she put these mineral 
elements to work, and they became mixed with the 
roots, bodies, limbs, leaves and stems of these 
plants, grasses, and trees, which form the or- 
ganic matter of the soil, which held moisture and 
gave the soil its necessary ventilation. Then Na- 
ture created the soil bacteria, the mighty little 
chemical workers of the soil, who, attacking this 
organic matter, broke it down and in their labora- 
tories worked it up into not only plant food, but 
into the humus of the soil which acts as a water 
reservoir for plants, improves the physical 
condition of the soil and regulates soil tempera- 
ture. 

Nature's processes of soil building are so sim- 
ple and yet complicated in this, that while we can 
not fathom the mystery of plant growth by which 
two plants growing side by side in the same char- 
acter of soil, kissed by the same sunshine and 



116 THE BUSINESS OF FAEMING 

nourished by the same rains, the one plant will 
seem to poison the soil and rob it of its fertility, 
and the other plant, while taking from the soil 
all the elements it needs for fruitful growth, gives 
back to the soil more fertility than it consumes, 
yet we can if we will, observe the phenomena of 
plant life and growth, and grow as much as pos- 
sible of those plants that build up the soil. 

Nature, having built the original soil by a lav- 
ish use of organic matter, man, when he brought 
it into cultivation began to grow upon it those 
crops for gain, which, as we have said, never give 
to the soil any fertility in compensation for the 
food they take from the soil to build them up and 
ripen their harvest of fruit or grain. The soil 
being new and fertile the harvest of these crops 
was large, the husbandman waxed fat from their 
sale, the avarice of greed became a passion, so 
year by year the husbandman continued the 
growing of these crops so that the soil was slowly 
but surely mined of its fertility, but it resented 
its treatment, inflicted the awful punishment of 
withdrawing its bounty and became the sick 
worn-out soil found not only on the abandoned 
farm, but in all parts of our Union. 

So when the **soil doctor" was called upon to 
the diagnosis of this worn soil, to fathom its ills 
and prescribe a course of treatment, he found it 
stripped of its organic matter and humus. It 
was cold, compact, without capacity for ventila- 
tion. Soil bacteria had abandoned it because it 
furnished no food for their maintenance, nor fa- 
vorable environment for their existence. He 
found it but a soil skeleton stripped of its flesh, 



PUTTING THE SOIL IN CONDITION 117 

that could not grow the common growth of weeds, 
let alone the "foodful ear." 

The first step towards the restoration of these 
conditions to the soil is to ventilate the soil, for 
plant roots must breathe to live as well as man. 
Close, compact, non-porous soil without organic 
matter or humus is a dead soil. It becomes a 
house without ventilation in which no plant roots 
can properly breathe or secure the free oxygen 
necessary for the plant's growth and proper de- 
velopment. 

This soil ventilation is secured first by drain- 
age. The principle of drainage is that it opens 
up the pores of the soils so that water and air 
can percolate through them, and when soil pores 
are open for the free passage of air and water 
they become a home where plant roots may not 
only breathe, but strike deep and become safe 
from droughts as well as floods; where soil bac- 
teria may live and work out their laboratory 
problems of compounding food for plants, and 
cleansing soil of its offensive accumulations. The 
''soil doctor" who does not prescribe a large dose 
of drainage for worn and worn-out soils will surely 
fail to cure his patient. For drainage is surely 
the ''first and most important aid to the injured," 
in worn and worn-out soil treatment. 

The dose of drainage having been properly ad- 
ministered, the next step in the course of treat- 
ment is the securing to the soil organic matter and 
humus. Applying these two elements to worn 
and worn-out soils, not only aids in securing soil 
ventilation, but absorbs vast quantities of water 
to be held and supplied to growing plants when 



118 THE BUSINESS OF FARMING 

needed, furnishes the food for germ life and bac- 
teria, the food for plant growth, and releases and 
makes available the minerals bound up in the rock 
particles of the soil. 

Like the soil medicine of drainage, the medicine 
of organic matter and humus must be prescribed 
in big doses for sick, worn, and worn-out soils. 
It is the soil medicine that cannot in this age be 
given in over doses. True, Nature *' overdosed'^ 
it in some instances, as in the case of muck soils 
where organic matter and humus were given to 
the soil for ages, and when no greedy farmer was 
near to consume these soil elements by the grow- 
ing of those gainful crops which feed upon and 
consume them. 

The next dose of ''soil medicine" to be admin- 
istered is ''proper plowing of the soil." Like the 
ancient farmer, to-day many of the farmers of 
the old countries scratch the soil with a crooked 
stick and call it plowing. Even many of the farm- 
ers of our country with their new and most mod- 
ern styles of plows scratch their soils three or four 
inches deep and encourage themselves with the 
thought that they are really plowing the soil. 

Nature's plows are the roots of plants and 
trees, and with these plows she stirs and mixes 
the soil to a great depth, and more effectively than 
man with his most modern plows, and she never 
plows the soil in an improper condition. 

The object to be secured in plowing is to so stir 
the soil in its right stage so that the organic mat- 
ter and humus will be mixed with the rock particles 
of the soil that a deep seed bed be obtained, so that 
the storage capacity for water in the soil will be 




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PUTTING THE SOIL IN CONDITION 119 

increased, and the securing of a seed bed most 
favorable for the growth of plants; and such a 
seed bed is one that holds sufficient moisture, air 
and heat, that chemical and germ action will take 
place therein, that plant food be prepared for 
growing crops. 

There are times when the doctor of human ills 
requires his patients to wrap themselves with 
quilts and comforts that all parts of their bodies 
may be protected from drafts that certain con- 
ditions may be obtained so that the medicine ad- 
ministered to the patient may be efficacious. It 
is the same with soil doctoring. Sick soils need 
to be covered with cover crops so that certain con- 
ditions necessary to soil maintenance and restora- 
tion be obtained. Nature is a lavish user of cover 
crops and is persistent in her efforts to cover 
naked soils by the growth of weeds, grasses and 
trees, thus teaching us a valuable lesson in soil 
covering. 

A cover crop is one like grass, rye, clover, vetch, 
hungarian, buckwheat, or any close lying herbage 
and thickly rooted plant, whose mission is to pre- 
vent soil from washing, blowing away, puddling 
and cracking, and to prevent ammonia wastes by 
evaporation and the loss of nitrogen ; and its fur- 
ther mission is to produce the mellow texture of 
the soil and to bring about all those conditions 
characteristic of new and virgin soils. Like the 
doses of drainage, organic matter, plowing, etc., 
the dose of cover crops must be large or the "soil 
doctor ' ' will see but little improvement in his pa- 
tient of sick soil. 

The "soil doctor," while administering all the 



120 THE BUSINESS OF FAEMING 

doses mentioned, can greatly aid his patient in 
recovering its strength by administering ground 
rock phosphate and limestone, nitrate of soda, and 
potash, which, if given in right quantities, will so 
stimulate the soil that it will better assimilate the 
medicine of drainage, organic matter, plowing 
and soil covering. 

The most important method of treatment and 
medicines to be administered have been given for 
the treatment of sick soils. And the use of this 
method of treatment and the application of these 
remedies is the true and only remedy for the dis- 
ease of our soils. It is the only treatment and 
remedy for soil maintenance, and any other treat- 
ment and remedies which do not embody these are 
but the nostrums and patent medicine remedies 
of the quack soil doctor, the use of which will not 
only make the patient more ill and diseased, but 
will ultimately lead to his death. 

When the soil patient has recovered and the 
tissues of its body have been rebuilt and its 
strength has come back so that it again takes up 
its burden of bearing crops, we must continue 
giving it the medicine of drainage, organic matter, 
plowing, etc., as a food, for the soil as well as man 
and beast must be fed, and to assist it in assimilat- 
ing its food it must be groomed by proper cultiva- 
tion, crop rotation, etc., for soil will resent mis- 
treatment in these respects, as well as the mis- 
treatment of withholding from it drainage, organic 
matter, etc. Soil will surely respond and give its 
best to him who feeds it, properly tends it, grows 
different crops upon it each year, and keeps stock 



PUTTING THE SOIL IN CONDITION 121 

from tramping out its life in the fall, winter and 
spring seasons of the year. 

It will not be amiss to say something about the 
method of applying these different soil medicines, 
and how they may be procured. 

As to drainage there can hardly be too much of 
it, and it should be done even in the absence of 
water upon the soil, for we have shown that its 
object is not only to remove water but to get air 
into the soil. 

Drains should be constructed of porous tile, 
preferably cement, not less than six inches in di- 
ameter, laid at a proper depth, and so constructed 
that both ends of drains will be open, and if of 
any length, manholes with iron open tops should 
be constructed near the center of the main ditch 
line, which will secure the quick passage of water, 
preventing the deposit of sediment in the tile that 
always occurs when water saturated with soil sedi- 
ment slowly passes through tile. And drains con- 
structed in this manner admit the free passage 
of air through them, and open up spaces or pores 
in the soil for passage of air and water, and thus 
perfect soil ventilation is secured. 

The securing of a supply and application of 
organic matter and humus to worn soil is not so 
difficult as it may seem. It can be secured by con- 
serving and plowing under of weeds that escape 
cultivation, cornstalks and application of barn- 
yard manure. But supplies of these three are 
never secured in sufficient quantities on any soil 
to supply the need of organic matter and fur- 
ther and more adequate supplies must be obtained 



122 THE BUSINESS OF FAEMING 

elsewhere, but these can always be supplied in 
abundance on worn and worn-out soils by the 
growing of such green manuring crops as rye, 
vetch and sweet clover which are three plants that 
will grow abundant supplies of organic matter 
even on the poorest of soils, and when the supplies 
of organic matter which they produce are incor- 
porated into the soil, the clovers and other green 
manuring crops can be freely grown. 

Rye and vetch are truly the poor man's green 
manuring crops, because they can be planted and 
grown between seasons, that is, after the laying 
by of the corn, cotton or other crop, and will be 
ready to plow into the soil in the spring at planting 
time, thus preventing him the loss of a crop for 
gain, for he is in that condition where he cannot 
afford to miss for a single year the growing of a 
crop for profit or food. 

Every tiller of the soil is a plowman and he 
plows that he may sow and reap an abundant 
harvest of crops, yet how few tillers of soil under- 
stand the true art of plowing so that abundant 
harvest of crops can be secured. The true art of 
I)lowing consists simply in plowing the soil when 
it is dry enough so that tlie plow in passing 
tlirough the soil will not press together the soil 
grains under the plow and make a compact stratum 
of earth below the soil turned under which pre- 
vents the rising of moisture when needed by the 
growing plants, and so that a deep well turned 
seed bed can be secured. 

When the weeds, cornstalks, barnyard manure, 
etc., are put upon the soil to remain untouched 
during the rest seasons of the year, and those 



PUTTING THE SOIL IN CONDITION 123 

crops are planted in tlie fall that produce the 
heavy supplies of organic matter for the soil, we 
have then secured the soil covering, the importance 
of which has been shown. 

The soil remedies herein detailed by the soil 
doctor for the treatment of worn and worn-out 
soils, the most vital disease of our nation, are safe 
and sure. They are not new and untried remedies 
or nostrums, they are Nature's remedies and have 
been known to agriculture for ages. By their use 
England restored her worn soils and made them 
increase their productive power nearly four-fold, 
and the agriculturalists of old Rome administered 
them to its soil at the time it was noted for its 
high state of agriculture. 

Germany for the past ten years by their use 
has made her potato crop average 200 bushels per 
acre, while the United States by their non-use 
has made but an average of 93 bushels to the acre. 

In England and Scotland there are tenant farm- 
ers to-day who pay high rents for land, as much 
as $20 per acre, feed the land like they do their 
bullocks, and the food we mention, even at a cost 
of more than $100 per acre, and yet have made 
fortunes from their rented land, and one instance 
is given where one of those tenant farmers has 
made a fortune of a quarter of million dollars, 
lives in a fine mansion ''with servants, beauti- 
fully kept lawns, parks and gardens, with all kinds 
of fruits and flowers, and a conservatory for grow- 
ing hot house plants and fruits out of season." 

And there are scores of other tenants in this 
land who are making money and enjoying all the 
comforts of life, who have learned the true art of 



124 THE BUSINESS OF FARMING 

feeding the soil, that the soil, responsive as a hu- 
man being when caressed by the hand of love, 
pours out its crop wealth into the hand that treats 
it well. 

And there are men in our land who have also 
learned how to cure the diseases of our soils and 
the true art of feeding them, and the soil respon- 
sive of its good treatment is rewarding these men 
with bumper crops. 







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CHAPTER IX 

PLOWING 

SOMETHING has already been said about 
plowing, but the subject should be further 
discussed as it is the most important adjunct to 
the business of farming. 

A plow has been defined as a well known imple- 
ment drawn by horses, mules, oxen or other power, 
for turning up the soil to prepare it for growing 
crops. 

TuU, an agricultural writer of the long ago, said, 
''Writing and plowing are two different talents, 
and he that writes well must have spent in study 
that time which is necessary to be spent in the 
fields by him who will be master of the art of 
cultivating them. To write, then, effectively of 
plowing, one must not be qualified to write learn- 
edly." 

As the author does not deem himself qualified 
to write learnedly of plowing, he does believe, 
however, that he can write with some effect upon 
the art of plowing, for he first learned the art 
holding the plow handles of a walking plow upon 
the pioneer farm of his father, among the stumps 
of the newly cleared timber soils, and his fondest 
and sorest memories are of those youthful plow- 
ing days. Fondest, because they were the halcyon 
days of youth, the glorious springtime of our 

125 



126 THE BUSINESS OF FARMINa 

lives ; sorest, because in following the plow among 
the stumps of the ''clearin'," the plow point would 
catch on the long elm roots, the ends of which 
would give away through the force of pulling 
horses, relieving the tension, as it were, allow- 
ing the roots to fly back and whack him over the 
shins, which not only led to a copious flow of tears, 
but also to a copious flow of language, not such, 
however, that is used by a pious, Methodist dea- 
con, and which stimulated dreams of a city life. 

In the author's day the breaking plow has evo- 
luted from the walking two-horse plow, to the 
riding single and gang plows and the modem 
tractor plows, pulling their three, six, eight, twelve 
or more, bottoms. 

The ancient husbandman scratched his soil with 
a crooked stick, because he had or knew no better 
method of preparing his soil for growing crops. 
In the progress of time there was evolution in the 
art of building plows, just as there has been evo- 
lution in other things. "We smile when we look 
at the pictures of plows used by our ancestors, 
and, no doubt, future generations will do the same 
thing when they look at the pictures of our most 
modern plows. 

In the times of Nero, in parts of the world de- 
voted to agriculture, it was a common sight to 
see a wretched ass and an old woman hitched to 
their crude plows, preparing the soil the best they 
could with such means for the seed bed, which was 
nothing more than a slight stirring of the soil. 
And even in this day there are countries in Eu- 
rope in which plowing is done by the crude method 
of a straight piece of wood with an iron point to 



PLOWING 127 

wHcli is attached a handle and device for hitch- 
ing the power to move it. To this plow the hus- 
bandman hitches a mule or a buffalo which is led 
back and forth across the field by his wife, while 
he holds the plow into the ground the best he can. 

We have already recited the incident of the 
early American colonists scratching their soils 
with crude plows, and because they could not plow 
to any depth with them, became imbued with the 
idea that deep plowing injured the soil. 

We, the descendants of those colonists are 
surely victims of heredity, because this same false 
notion exists to-day and must have come to us by 
inheritance and is practiced by agriculturists to 
an extent alarming to him who has made any in- 
vestigation of modern plowing. 

For several years the author has made a care- 
ful investigation of plowing as practiced in the 
rich corn belt of Indiana, Illinois, and other States. 
He has taken measurements of the depth of plow- 
ing upon all kinds of soils, with all kinds and makes 
of modern plows, from the walking breaking plow, 
to the largest modern tractor, and his computa- 
tion of the average depth of plowing has revealed 
the startling fact that plowing in the locality men- 
tioned rarely exceeds an average depth of more 
than three and one-half inches. 

Investigating further as to the cause or reasons 
for such shallow plowing, he has come to the con- 
clusion that the conditions that have led up to or 
caused so shallow a plowing of the soil have gen- 
erally been an insufficiency of motive power, or 
power to pull the plows, and this insufficiency of 
power applies to every kind and make of plow, 



128 THE BUSINESS OF FARMING 

whether moved by horse, steam or gasoline 
power. 

Most farmers want to plow deeper, and many- 
are deluded into believing that they are plowing 
deep enough, for they never measure with a rule 
the depth they are plowing, and to attempt to 
measure the depth of plowing with the eye is de- 
ceptive. It takes power to move any plow five 
or more inches in depth through our soils of to- 
day, for they are closer and more compact than 
they were when filled with organic matter. 

Plowing for the seed bed is done mostly in the 
spring of the year, when horses have just passed 
through their period of winter rest and are un- 
used to the hard work required for plowing. They 
are in that period which the farmer calls ''soft." 
Their muscles are relaxed and need to be tough- 
ened, and instead of preparing the horse for this 
hard, laborious work, by a practice of lighter 
work, he is put to the plow early in the spring and, 
it being the "inish season," when the spring plow- 
ing must be done quickly so that the seed may be 
planted in due time, the horse is pushed to his 
limit. And to relieve his burden, the farmer 
raises the devices upon his plow that regulate the 
depth of plowing, and shallow plowing becomes 
the rule upon the average farm. 

Recently the author went into a field where a 
farmer had two light horses, neither weighing 
over 1200 pounds, hitched to a common walking 
plow. He was attempting to plow a stiff soil, 
deficient in any loosening matter. It was cold, 
compact, and within less than a depth of three and 
a half inches, had not been broken for a long 




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PLOWING 129 

series of years, and so was like hard pan. It was 
that undercrust of soil which we find upon most of 
our soils, underlying the usual plow depth, caused 
to some extent by the passing of the bottom of 
the mold board plow through the soil. This man, 
by actual measurement, was breaking up this soil 
to an average depth of three inches. When asked 
by the author why he did not plow deeper, he re- 
plied that when he adjusted his plow to plow a 
greater depth, or so that it would penetrate the 
hard soil underneath the depth of three or more 
inches, his horses could not pull the plow. It was 
a case of lack of motive power, so he set his plow 
to do shallow plowing. And it may be of inter- 
est to know that the com grown upon this shallow 
plowed soil did not average ten bushels to the 
acre. 

Experimenting with riding gang plows of two 
twelve-inch bottoms, plowing in average soils as 
to compactness, the author has found that such 
plows, plowing to a depth of five, or six inches, can 
be easily drawn by four average farm horses ; but 
when set to plow seven, eight, or nine inches, the 
minimum depth to which any soils should be 
plowed, the drawing of these plows becomes a dif- 
ficult task. 

In the past five or six years the author has ex- 
perimented with, and has investigated the break- 
ing of the soil with modern gasoline and steam 
tractor plows, and he has found the same condi- 
tion to obtain with most every one of these plows 
that he has operated upon his farms, or seen op- 
erated. As long as their plows were adjusted to 
plow five or six inches in depth, their engines 



130 THE BUSINESS OF FARMING 

pulled their loads easily and economically as to 
fuel and operating expenses, but when greater 
depths of plowing were required, say nine or ten 
inches, then most of these plowing outfits were 
even unable to pull their loads, or if they did, it 
was at too great expense for fuel, or too slow a 
speed for economy. Yet some were a success. 

Recently the author went to a State adjoining 
the one in which he resides to see the operation of 
a large and much advertised gasoline tractor, 
with an eight twelve-inch bottom plowing outfit. 
It was plowing an old blue grass pasture field 
and the sod was heavy. They attempted to plow 
this heavy sod with the eight bottoms at an aver- 
age depth of five inches, and failed. They took 
off one bottom and again failed. Another bottom 
was removed with like failure, until fiLually, pull- 
ing five bottoms, they could make fair progress. 
But the job of plowing was such that the sod was. 
not overturned to a sufficient depth, and the soil 
was so broken up that the sod would not be wiell 
turned under so it would be destroyed or would 
so rot that the blue grass would be killed and the 
field be put in fit condition for cultivation. 

But why do we plow? To loosen up the soil 
and prepare a seed bed in which plants will grow 
and develop and reproduce their kind. 

The proper development of the plant into that 
condition that will cause it to give its maximum 
yield of matured fruit, grain and produce, is the 
consummation desired by every one who tills the 
soil, but plants will not do this unless the seed 
from which they sprang has been sown in a 
properly prepared seed bed which is stocked with 



PLOWING 131 

fertility so the plant will have the elements that 
feed it, and the loosened soil that can be success- 
fully cultivated, and in which the plant can de- 
velop its root system. Most of the plants grown 
upon the farm have a fairly large root develop- 
ment. It therefore is apparent that they should 
have a considerable loosened soil space in which 
properly to grow their roots. Eare is the plant 
that will develop a large root system in close com- 
pact soil, and rare is the plant that will come to 
full maturity and harvest without the development 
of a large root system. 

Soils in the progress of formation were kept 
loosened up considerably deeper than they were 
ever afterwards plowed, by the growing roots of 
trees, plants, shrubs and wild grasses, and the 
great amount of organic matter put into them by 
these agencies. The roots of the vegetation men- 
tioned pushed down into the soil in every direc- 
tion and loosened it up more effectively than could 
be done by any plow. And the great amount of 
organic matter put into the soil by the decaying 
of vegetation kept it loose so that plant and tree 
roots could properly develop, so thrifty and lux- 
uriant vegetation grew upon these soils before 
they were brought into cultivation. 

When cultivation began upon them and they 
were subjected to years of crop growing, the or- 
ganic matter in them was eaten up by growing 
crops and they became compact. Year after year 
they were plowed and cultivated to the same depth 
so that there was formed under the plowing depth 
a plow sole or a stratum of hard earth, through 
which water slowly passes and plant roots cannot 



132 THE BUSINESS OF FAEMING 

enter. If the soil stratum above this plow sole is 
from three to six inches in depth, it quickly be- 
comes saturated with water in flood time, which 
rapidly runs oif carrying with it the dissolved soil, 
resulting in great erosion and badly washed fields. 
And what soil remains, being of so thin a stratum, 
quick evaporation of its moisture results, and 
havoc is wrought to the crops growing upon it, 
and the plow sole prevents any moisture coming 
from below by the process of capillary attraction. 
The true theory of deeper plowing is that the 
soil may be loosened up to that depth which will 
gather a large quantity of moisture, when mois- 
ture is available, and which can by proper meth- 
ods of cultivation be retained in dry weather for 
the use of the growing plants, and that will give 
plants, especially the deep and extensive rooted 
ones, the best environment for their proper and 
full development. 

Eecent experiments in dynamiting the plow sole 
and hard sub-soil of soils which resulted in the 
thrifty growth of fruit trees, alfalfa, com and 
better crops generally, prove that the theory of 
deeper plowing is not an idle dream of the theo- 
rist. 

The success of dry farming is due to the fact 
that the soil is plowed deep so that it can gather 
a large supply of moisture when moisture is avail- 
able, which is afterwards conserved by its prac- 
tices of cultivation, especially designed to con- 
serve this gathered moisture. Where green ma- 
nuring and the plowing under of cornstalks or 
other matured organic matter upon the farm is 
practiced, deeper plowing must be practiced upon 



PLOWING 133 

the farm or tlie organic matter cannot be turned 
under successfully and in a manner that insures 
success in growing crops. 

For forty years the average depth of plowing 
in North Carolina was four inches and the aver- 
age of corn grown in this time was fifteen bushels 
to the acre. The government experimental farms 
for the year 1912 plowed three thousand acres a 
greater depth and secured forty bushels to the 
acre. 

In the Dakotas, where wheat is extensively 
grown, mostly by the large ranch farmers, plow- 
ing is mostly done by the steam and gasoline 
tractor, pulling plows with a large number of 
bottoms, and shallow plowing from three to four 
inches is practiced with the result that a wheat 
crop is secured only in seasons of plenty of mois- 
ture, and even then such crops are not secured that 
would be if deeper plowing was practiced, and 
money in wheat grown under such conditions is 
made by putting out a large acreage at the lowest 
expense for planting and harvesting. If the 
growing season be dry, failure results. Yet ex- 
periments in that region with deeper plowing have 
proven that if the soil was plowed deeply and 
worked with the end of moisture conservation in 
view, greater crops would be secured in sea- 
sons of plenty of moisture, and paying crops even 
secured in dry seasons, and such crops secured 
that would pay the small farmer to grow wheat 
and would make available the fertility locked up 
in the soil stratum lying below the present three or 
four inches of soil generally broken up, and this, 
to some extent, would relieve the situation of ex- 



134 THE BUSINESS OF FAEMING 

hausted fertility now becoming so common in that 
country. 

The author has experimented with the deep 
tilling machine that plows the soil from ten to 
twenty or more inches in depth, and he has gath- 
ered the results of the experience of others with 
the same machine. These experiments prove that 
deeper plowing which is nothing more than better 
tillage, is one of the best remedies for the restora- 
tion of our ailing soils, because it makes available 
for plant food the locked up fertility in the stratum 
of soil below the plow sole which has lain dormant 
so long. 

It also proves that the farmers of America have 
too long allowed themselves to be frightened by 
the "scarecrow'' of "turning up too much bot- 
tom soil" flaunted by well meaning persons, no 
doubt, but which has so encouraged the shallow 
plowing practice by the American farmer who 
was eager to adopt its principles because shallow 
plowing was so much easier done, and so relieved 
the burden from his horses and mules that fur- 
nished the motive power to move the plows. 

In the consideration of the question of the 
proper method of plowing we must determine first 
what is deep plowing, or what is shallow plow- 
ing? 

To draw the line of demarkation between the 
two would simply be the opinion of the individual 
making the definition, for there has been no stand- 
ard definition fixed. However the general con- 
sensus of opinion seems to be, and which ought to 
become the fixed standard, that any plowing of 







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PLOWING 135 

nine inclies and over is deep plowing, and there- 
fore, any plowing under nine inches is shallow 
plowing. 

In the author's judgment this standard is as 
good as any that can be fixed, for he has learned 
by observation and much experience that the plow- 
ing of most of our soils to a depth of nine inches 
is the plowing of them to that depth that gives 
the full benefits of deep plowing. Nine inch plow- 
ing, done with the proper plow, breaks up the plow 
sole, properly incorporates any organic matter 
that may be upon the surface of the ground with 
the soil, and makes a seed bed with sufficient room 
for the proper root development of most any 
plant grown by the farmer, and gives a large stor- 
age room for moisture when it is available to be 
conserved and used for future crop growth. 

Not every plow is capable of plowing the soil 
more than nine inches in depth. It can not be 
done successfully with the two horse walking 
plow, for the draft will be too much for the horses. 
And many of the single bottom three horse riding 
plows, and the two bottom gang plows, are not 
so constructed that they will turn correctly the 
nine inch furrow slice. The^r construction has 
had in view the turning of a five, six, or seven inch 
furrow slice. Yet some of these plows will do 
nine inch plowing successfully. Illustration on 
page 125 shows one of them at work turning as 
nice a nine inch furrow ever seen upon the farm. 

Many of the modern disc plows will plow nine, 
ten and twelve inches in depth, and do a job of 
perfect plowing and with light draft. Illustra- 



136 THE BUSINESS OF FAEMING 

tion entitled A Medium Size Gasoline Tractor 
shows a modem tractor doing perfect deep plow- 
ing. 

While the invention of the gang and many bot- 
tom tractor plows has led to extensive rather than 
intensive farming, by which vast tracts have been 
brought into cultivation, and sown to the same 
crops year after year, and which led ultimately 
to their exhaustion of fertility, yet these plows 
can be made to do a great service to the farmer 
who conserves and builds up the soil fertility, as 
it will enable him to plow his soil the proper depth, 
and at a reduced cost per acre, and at a time when 
it is in proper condition for breaking. And many 
of these tractor plows have sufficient motive power 
for moving plows at the proper depth and eco- 
nomically. 

The summing up of the whole matter of plowing 
is that taking in view the present condition of 
our soils and their needs, we must secure the 
breaking plow for our farms that will 

1st. Properly turn over the soil to a depth of 
nine or more inches. 

2d. That will as near as possible turn com- 
pletely under green manuring crops and other or- 
ganic matter. 

3d. That will as little as possible press to- 
gether the soil grains at the bottom of the furrow 
slice so as not to interfere with capillary action. 

4th. That have the lightest draft. 

5th. That can be rapidly moved in the most 
economical manner, and yet do proper work. 

Gth. That will reduce surface soil packing to 
a minimum. Surface soil packing by plows per- 



PLOWING 137 

tain only to tractor plowing outfits, and upon soils 
susceptible to packing. 

When we have secured the proper plows for our 
farm we must have sufficient motive power to 
move them and keep them going when the soil is 
in the proper condition for plowing. A vast 
amount of injury is done every year by plow- 
ing our soils when not in proper condition for 
plowing. Soil is only in proper condition for 
plowing when it is neither too wet nor too dry, and 
as the period when the soil is in proper condition 
for plowing is so short, the importance of plenty 
of motive power is apparent. 

Farmers figure that the keeping of more horses 
upon the farm than is needed for the cultivation 
and marketing of the crops grown, is expensive 
and eats up too much of the profits of the busi- 
ness. And there is truth in this contention. Yet 
we must consider the damage resulting in not 
breaking up our soils when in the right condition. 
The problem is not without its difficulties and has 
given the author more trouble than any of his 
farm problems. He has felt that the true solu- 
tion of the question is a light tractor, weighing 
6000 pounds, or less, with a two or three bottom 
plowing outfit, capable of coming up to the speci- 
fications of the proper plow for the farm hereto- 
fore given, and especially the specification as to 
the packing of the soil. 

Such an outfit could be operated economically 
and could be kept going night and day when the 
right period for plowing is at hand. And then 
when the plowing season was over it could be sub- 
jected for many uses upon the farm, and even 



138 THE BUSINESS OF FARMING 

when not in use would be at no cost of mainte- 
nance; it would be of no expense to the farmer 
except the slight cost of depreciation, interest and 
insurance, and would be an immense saving 
over the cost of keeping an extra supply of horses 
for plowing which would be doing nothing at other 
seasons of the year and whose cost of keeping is 
so great. 

The author ventures the prophecy that the day 
is near at hand when, not only all our breaking 
of the soil will be done by the small farm tractor, 
but cultivation, hauling to market and much, if 
not all other farm work will be done by these tract- 
ors, and by cultivating implements propelled by 
gasoline or electricity manufactured upon the 
farm. It is practicable and only remains for the 
genius to invent the farm machinery necessary, 
and the author has so much faith in the American 
mechanical genius that he believes that this is a 
consummation that will come to pass and soon be- 
come a part of our farm economy. 

But until this is brought about upon our farms 
we must continue to use the motive power of horses 
and mules, and we can reduce the cost of such 
power, and minimize other objections, only by 
installing upon our farms the heavy draft horses 
which cost but little more, if any, to feed and 
care for than the horses of lighter weight. With 
the heavy draft horses plows can be moved easier, 
and plowing can be done to proper depths and at 
the lowest possible cost and at proper times. But 
to do this, we are again confronted with the ques- 
tion of lack of capital, for the first cost of large 
draft horses is heavy. 




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PLOWING 139 

Every farmer knows, or should know, tliat 
proper plowing contributes mucli to successful 
farm operations, therefore we wish to emphasize 
these facts : that plowing must be done just at the 
right time in order to secure the greater success 
in the growing of crops ; that the plowing or break- 
ing up of the soil in the spring of the year is the 
hardest task upon the farm as the time is limited, 
for its accomplishment, and there are generally 
but few days when the soil is just right for break- 
ing ; that generally the soil plows hard, horses are 
"soft" and unused to work, and that to do the 
work right the soil needs to be broken deeply 
which means power to move the plow. 

The average farmer from lack of capital has 
hut few horses and they, as a general rule, are 
light in weight and totally unsuited for heavy 
draft purposes, consequently in a majority of 
cases, plowing is never done at the right time or 
in the right manner. 

If plenty of capital were available to most farm- 
ers they would or could provide themselves with 
a sufficient number of horses of sufficient draft 
capacity, to move sufficient plows, plowing a suf- 
ficient depth to insure the breaking of their soil at 
the right stage and thus secure a satisfactory crop 
yield. 

When Eoman agriculture was at its height of 
perfection, Eome was flourishing as the greatest, 
nation then on earth, and her greatest agricultural 
writer recorded that the first principle of agricul- 
ture was "to plow well." That the second prin- 
ciple was to "plow again," and many Eoman till- 
ers of the soil plowed their lands as many as nine 



140 THE BUSINESS OF FARMING 

times for a single crop. It was their creed to 
plow well and in good weather so as to avoid clods. 
The successful Roman farmer never allowed his 
eye to deceive him, for he knew that too often the 
smooth surface of the soil left by plowing con- 
ceals the clods. So he took the sharp, stout stick, 
and drove it into the newly plowed soil. If it 
readily penetrated the soil to the plow depth, he 
knew the plowing had been well done, and that 
there were no concealed clods. If the stick pene- 
trated the soil with difficulty, he knew his plow- 
ing had been badly done, and that the soil had 
broken up cloddy, and so would not be in the 
proper condition for the successful growing of 
crops. To avoid clods they advised against plow- 
ing their lands before the 13th of April. 

Wliile the farmer of to-day is more interested 
in how soils should be plowed now, yet if he would 
but study how the best farmers, even the farmers 
of thousands of years ago, plowed their soils, he 
would get the greater inspiration to plow well. 
We have frequently said that soils after they have 
been cultivated for a score or more of years, plow 
differently from the way they did when first sub- 
jected to cultivation, for when the vegetable or 
organic matter content has been reduced in them, 
they become compact and easily assume the cloddy 
condition, and to plow them in this state when they 
are too freely saturated with moisture, means to 
secure the cloddy seed bed, which under present 
soil conditions, is one of the most serious menaces 
to successful farm operations. 

Never plow the clay soils when they are too wet, 



; PLOWING 141 

for if so plowed they may be years in recovering 
from such evil treatment. 

He who is possessed of sandy soils is too often 
imbued with the erroneous notion that the soils 
can be safely plowed long before clay soils are in 
proper condition for plowing. There is as great, 
if not greater danger in plowing sandy soils when 
too wet. The author is speaking from experience 
of years in the plowing of sandy soils. The plow- 
ing of those soils when too wet, especially when 
they are short on organic matter content, means 
that they will pack and become like mixed cement 
and sand, and so become almost utterly incapable 
of being put in condition for the successful grow- 
ing of crops upon them, until they have been re- 
stored by severe freezing, and filling with green 
manuring crops and organic matter. 

Farmers, get the vision of proper plowing. 
Secure the plow that does not belie its name. 
Plow with sufficient motive power. Plow when 
soil is in condition. Plow deep. Plow to reduce 
''dead furrows" to the minimum. Plow aesthet- 
ically. 

The plow that does not belie its name is the plow 
of light draft, and one which cuts the deep furrow 
slice and turns it completely over so that any or- 
ganic matter being plowed under will be cov- 
ered beyond the reach of cultivating machinery, 
leaving the upturned soil as nearly level as pos- 
sible. 

The ''dead furrows" produce crops of stunted 
growth, and this stunted crop growth appearing 
too often in our fields, not only reduces the total 



142 THE BUSINESS OF FARMING 

crop yield to an extent worthy of considering, but 
produces unsightly effects that the true farmer no 
more desires to see than he does the "runts" 
among his farm animals. 

While these "dead furrows" can not be en- 
tirely avoided, yet by a little study and planning, 
which planning and study can be done at idle 
times, they can be largely eliminated. 

The aesthetical side of plowing is to plow in 
straight lines, to avoid the "dead furrows," and 
to secure the pleasing effect to the eye, for the 
neatly and well plowed fields, plowed in straight 
lines, bespeak the skilled farm workman who does 
his work right and with thoughtful care, and mean 
that his every work upon the farm will be done 
with the same skill and attention, thus securing 
success in the business of farming. 




'1 HK (iOOl) TILLACJ-: IMPLEMENTS. 
(Courtesy Interiialional llarvcstcr Company, Chicago, 111. 



CHAPTER X 

THE PEEPAEATION OF THE SOIL APTER PLOWING FOE 
THE SEED BED 

TO properly prepare tlie soil for the seed bed 
after it is plowed or broken up, is as impor- 
tant as the right plowing of the soil, and yet few 
farmers give this the attention it should receive. 
The author has always contended that the soil 
properly prepared for the seed bed after it has 
been plowed is half the cultivation of the crop, 
that is, if the soil be put in the right condition 
for planting that the crops grown do not need 
thereafter one-half the cultivation usually given, 
and besides there are other and important advan- 
tages to be obtained. 

Old agricultural writers of practice contended 
that ''tillage is manure." That proper prepara- 
tion of the soil is nothing more than intensive till- 
age, and that intensive tillage pulverizes and 
mixes up the soil, that it paves the way for the re- 
lease of soil elements that feed the growing plants. 
But how are we to get this tillage or proper prep- 
aration? 

1st. We must have the proper implements with 
which to do it. 

2d. It must be done at the right time. 

3d. The tillage must be thorough or in quan- 
tity. 

If soil is hard, compact, and devoid of the 

143 



144 THE BUSINESS OF FARMING 

proper moisture to make it break up and turn over 
loose by the breaking plow, we will have the clods, 
a hindrance to good tillage and a menace to crop 
growth, if steps are not taken immediately after 
plowing to break them up. And even if the soil 
breaks up loosely, it is necessary to submit it to 
proper tillage to conserve moisture and to bring 
out or make available the fertility within it. 

Various pulverizing devices to be attached to 
breaking plows have been Invented, which are 
designed to work down the soil to smoothness and 
fineness at the time the soil is plowed. Some of 
these are successful, but they generally add to the 
already overburdened plow moved by horses, and 
so are impracticable for that reason. So the 
farmer must rely upon the implement designed 
to run separately from the plow. Such imple- 
ments heretofore used are the roller, the harrow, 
the disc, the pulverizer and the drag, the most 
commonly used being the harrow. "While the har- 
row is a satisfactory implement to be used for this 
purpose, when soil plows up in a loose state, it 
should not be relied upon entirely to prepare a 
proper seed bed. The common spike tooth and 
spring tooth harrows are the most common and 
best types of harrows to use. 

The roller is one of the most valuable imple- 
ments upon the farm, but must be used with judg- 
ment. If soil is already too moist, it does not 
need the roller ; in fact, the roller would injure it. 
In the absence of too much moisture, it should al- 
ways be used and must be used when green ma- 
nuring and the plowing under of other organic 
matter is practiced upon the farm. 



PEEPARATION OF THE SOIL 145 

The modern up-to-date double disc, one section 
of the cut away pattern and the other section the 
common round disc, is a farm implement of great 
value and should be extensively used in all soils, 
and no other implement will give the proper till- 
age that this implement gives to the soil. Of 
course it requires power, four horses, to properly 
move it, but it has capacity for quick work, leaves 
the soil level, and certainly gives the best tillage 
of any farm implement designed and built for that 
purpose. 

The drag, an implement of home manufacture, 
for they are generally made upon the farm, is 
another valuable implement which gives the best 
of tillage if properly constructed. They should 
be made of heavy one and one-half or two inch 
plank, and of weight that requires at least three 
horses to move them. The author regards the 
drag as one of his most valuable farm implements 
to use in the preparation of the soil for the seed 
bed. In the first place it is not an expensive farm 
tool. Any farmer with material can easily make 
it. It levels and pulverizes the soil and packs it 
correctly so as to aid conservation of moisture. 
Of course it must be understood that the drag 
should never be used when the soil is too wet. 
Like the roller, it must be used with judgment. 

Most farmers are content if they simply harrow 
their soil after it is plowed, before planting the 
seed. In the present age this is a serious mistake. 
We have already shown that when our soils were 
first brought into cultivation such a method of 
preparation might be successful, but it will no 
longer do to practice this system. To get the 



146 THE BUSINESS OF FAEMING 

best service from the soil in growing crops we 
must give it intensive tillage before planting the 
seed. 

, The soil should be subjected to this process of 
preparation within a few hours after it is plowed, 
for the sooner it is thoroughly prepared for the 
seed bed the better, as it is then put into condi- 
tion for the conservation of moisture, and the soil 
is in its best condition for pulverizing and work- 
ing up to the best seed bed. 

Where failures have been made in plowing un- 
der heavy crops for green manuring purposes, it 
has invariably been due to the fact that the green 
crops were not properly plowed under as to depth 
and covering with soil, and the soil was not suf- 
ficiently packed with the roller or drag after plow- 
ing. 

If the farmer would, in the various processes 
of crop growing, be as careful as the manufacturer 
is in his various j)rocesses of manufacturing his 
products, so as to get the best finished product, 
he would make a better success of fanning. Both 
farmer and manufacturer must give important 
consideration as to cost, yet the value of the fin- 
ished product must always be kept in view, and 
it must not be sacrificed for cost. Therefore, any 
process that will obtain a better and greater quan- 
tity of the finished product must be installed upon 
the farm as well as in the manufacturing plant. 

If the proper development of plants needs a 
better seed bed of thoroughly pulverized drained 
soil, full of organic matter so that it becomes a 
favorable environment for ventilation, heat, mois- 
ture, soil bacteria and the other essentials of plant 



PEEPAEATION OF THE SOIL 147 

growth, then the farmer can not afford to spare 
any expense or labor to secure that end, for it 
means more and better farm products and better 
prices for same. So the author contends that 
many of the failures of crop growing are due to 
the fact that the farmer does not properly pre- 
pare his seed bed, even after he has drained, fed, 
and broken up his soil. 

The author, from a long experience, has been 
convinced that the old agricultural writers stated 
a great truth when they said that ^'tillage is ma- 
nure," and every farmer, if he has any sense of 
observation, and he has no business to follow the 
business of farming unless he has such a sense, 
has certainly observed that the better his soil has 
been worked down for the seed bed, the better he 
can plant his seeds, and cultivate his plants, the 
better they will grow, and a greater eradication of 
weeds will result. 

In the consideration of costs we must never for- 
get results. If increased cost will result in more 
and better products, and conserve and increase 
the fertility of our soils, we should pay the price. 

Therefore, in the preparation of the soil for 
the seed bed, we should not let cost prevent us 
from the frequent use of the harrow, the roller, 
the disc and the drag, if it will put our soil in 
that condition that will produce the heavier bur- 
den of crop growth, and the better product, for 
such a result means the greater profit, besides the 
glorious satisfaction of doing and accomplishing 
something worth while. 

The results of better farming are what 
every one must strive for who desires to make 



148 THE BUSINESS OF FARMING 

a success of the business of fanning, and these 
results can be obtained in the greater measure if 
the tiller of the soil will catch and put into action 
the spirit of thorough tillage before the planting 
of the seed. 




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CHAPTER XI 

SEEDS, SEED SELECTION AND SEED PLANTING 

TO insure success in the business of farming 
there must not only be a combination of all 
the elements that enter into the business, into the 
harmonious whole, but each element must be per- 
fect within itself. 

The most perfectly developed seed, a single ele- 
ment of the business, will not reproduce itself in 
kind if it is planted in a soil, another element of 
the business, that has been shorn of its fertility. 

This truth was exemplified in the parable of the 
sower uttered by the Christ to the multitudes by 
the side of the Galilean sea. The sower went 
forth to sow one kind of seed and that which fell 
into the thin stony soil sprang up and for lack of 
the deep soil that gives forth moisture and plant 
food, either withered away and died or repro- 
duced the inferior seed. The seed that fell 
upon the fertile soil full of weed and thorn life, 
was choked by their thrifty unchecked growth. 
But the good seed that fell into good ground put 
into proper condition and cared for by the careful 
husbandman brought forth seed of its kind, even 
to a hundredfold. 

We are thus taught that while seed selection is 
a most important thing in the business of farm- 
ing, yet when we have selected the good seed our 

149 



150 THE BUSINESS OF FARMING 

work is only begun; we must reacli out further 
and secure those conditions of good soil, good 
tillage and careful cultivation that give the seed 
the chance to live, grow and reproduce. 

This truth was ''driven home" to the author 
in a most emphatic manner the past season. He 
secured some of the best Eeed's Yellow Dent Seed 
Corn that could be found in Indiana, getting the 
seed on the ear, and paying a fancy price for it. 
Every ear was almost perfect and was carefully 
tested. One bushel of this seed was planted as 
an experiment upon a plot of soil, every part of 
which was of the same character of soil, but part 
of it was worn and to this no fertilizing matter 
had been given. The remainder of the plot had 
been fertilized with green manuring crops un- 
til it was in a most fertile stage. The entire plot 
was plowed the same depth and given the same 
tillage and put in the best possible condition for 
the planting of the seed. The corn was planted 
with the same planter and to the same depth. 
Cultivation afterwards was the same upon all 
parts of the plot. When the corn was harvested 
that upon the worn soil was inferior and of the 
stunted growth. The seed had not reproduced in 
kind. The corn upon the good ground produced 
the hundredfold crop of fine perfect corn ; the seed 
had here reproduced its kind and the truth was 
emphasized that seed will only reproduce its kind 
when conditions for growth are favorable, and 
that success in producing the manufactured prod- 
ucts of the farm depends upon a good combination 
of all the elements that enter into the business. 
In seed selection these rules should obtain: 



SEED SELECTION AND PLANTING 151 

1st. The Variety. In the selection of a va- 
riety we must first determine whether it is suitable 
for the locality of our soil. Its quality of pro- 
ductiveness and ability to mature its crops in the 
growing season. The quality of its kind and 
feeding value, and the demand for the products it 
produces in our particular markets. 

2d. The Quality of the Seed. By this we mean 
that the seed must be of the variety we desire to 
plant; sound, well matured, and of strong germ- 
ination. While the trained eye can detect both 
the good and the weak points in seeds, yet the 
only safe way is to test the seed in the testing box. 

3d. The Vitality of the Seed. Seed may 
germinate and yet be utterly worthless. Seeds- 
men seeking to dispose of their inferior seed too 
often insist that their seed is good because it 
germinates well, but that is no criterion of good 
seed. The crucible test of good seed is a vitality 
strong enough to withstand the vicissitudes of 
adverse conditions of soil and weather after it 
has germinated. The seed may germinate and 
send forth a plant so weak in vitality that it read- 
ily succumbs to heat, cold, or other adverse con- 
ditions that every seed and plant must encounter 
in its growing process. The prematured seed is 
always weak in vitality. Nature always matures 
her seeds in the most thorough manner, and this 
is the reason she has always perpetuated her many 
varieties of plants when unaided by man. Man 
goes into his fields, plucks the seeds of plants 
before they are matured, carefully stores and 
cares for them, and often they fail to grow and 
reproduce in the full strength necessary. Old 



152 THE BUSINESS OF FARMING 

Nature does not gather her seeds, she protects 
them with certain coverings and surroundings, ma- 
tures them upon their mother plant stems or 
vines, subjects them to moisture, sunshine and 
cold, and yet they grow with strength and vigor, 
and reproduce in profusion. 

A simple illustration proves these facts. In 
early spring we often see ears of corn in our 
stock fields that have escaped the harvest. These 
ears of corn would be plowed under and when 
heat, moisture and other agencies had done their 
work, every grain upon these ears would send 
forth a strong, vigorous plant. 

Understand that the author is not advocating 
the saving and caring for seeds to be left to Na- 
ture, but he is trying to emphasize the truth that 
seeds must be matured in order that they be pos- 
sessed of strong vitality. 

4th. There Must he Uniformity of Seed. Some 
authorities claim that this trait of seeds is the most 
important; that seed may be strongly marked as 
to germination, strong vitality, productiveness, 
etc., yet if it lack in uniformity it is utterly worth- 
less for seed purposes. 

By uniformity we mean uniformity of type, 
color, time of maturing, etc. Seed unevenly ma- 
tured means that in many crops we have the plants 
showing in the field all stages of maturity. Blos- 
soms and maturity will appear at the same time, 
which can result in nothing else than loss. By 
uniformity we mean that the seeds we plant must 
be so alike in all the essentials required of good 
seeds that they will send forth plants that will 
mature their crops at the same time. If you 



SEED SELECTION AND PLANTING 153 

were planting peas for a canning factory, and 
planted ununif orm pea seed, it would mean that at 
harvest time you would have all stages of growth 
from the blossom to the over matured pods, which 
would result in great loss. And this would be 
true with many crops. 

Uniformity is not an easy thing to obtain, and 
so this fact is the cause of so much seed of this 
character, and of so many dishonest seedsmen. 
Seedsmen resort to what is known as the *' blend" 
practice, which is the mixing together of crops of 
seeds grown by their different growers. Seeds 
produced by different growers in different local- 
ities upon the different varieties of clay, prairies 
and light soils, of different degrees of fertility, 
affected by different growing conditions, harv- 
ested at different stages of maturity, and under 
varied treatments as to sowing, harvesting, cur- 
ing, etc., affects vitality, germination, and pro- 
duce the ununiform seed. 

This is one of the main reasons why the au- 
thor has always advocated that the farmer should 
always grow or produce his own seed wherever 
it is possible to do so. But some seeds he 
can not grow if he would, and so in the pur- 
chase of these he is at the mercy of the seedsmen, 
unless he becomes an expert in the judging of 
seeds, and why should he not make himself an ex- 
pert? He must do it if he wishes to make a suc- 
cess of the business of farming. There is much in 
the old axiom **If you want a thing done right do 
it yourself. * ' Follow this advice as much as possi- 
ble and your success in the business of fanning is 
assured. 



154 THE BUSINESS OP FARMING 

Our illustration in this volume entitled ''Like 
will not produce like," should send home the les- 
son that to produce uniform seed we must have 
soil of uniform fertility. No matter how good 
your seed may be it cannot reproduce uniformity 
where some seed is sown on worn soil and some 
on good ground. Ever remember the truth ex- 
emplified in the parable of the sower. 

The seed sown on the poor soil lacks in develop- 
ment because it has been starved. The elements 
that enter into good seed that make the seed the 
best of its kind were not in the soil, and so the 
plant was starved and its offspring was weak and 
lacked in uniformity. 

To be able to judge uniformity the farmer must 
familiarize himself with the size of the varieties 
of good seed of the different crops he would grow. 
Then if the seed he wishes to plant are not uni- 
form or are radically different as to size, some ex- 
ceedingly small or shrunken, and but few of them 
measuring up to the fixed standard as to size, he 
must know that these seeds are lacking in vitality ; 
that some will germinate slower and make less 
rapid growth, in fine, that the planting of this 
kind of seed means nothing but financial loss be- 
sides worry. 

Some one has said that seeds should be classed 
as follows: *'Poor, very poor, and almighty 
poor," and many are to be classed entirely to 
themselves under the appellation "mighty d — n 
poor." The "blend" furnished by too many 
seedsmen come under the latter class. 

The author was severely "touched" by dishon- 
est seedsmen before he learned the "seed game" 



SEED SELECTION AND PLANTING 155 

and his purchase of seeds for the past eighteen 
years has run up into the thousands of dollars 
each year. He is now writing from experience 
and wants to emphasize the truth that you must 
learn the ' ' seed game ' ' if you wish to avoid finan- 
cial loss and much worry. 

It is also important that you know the locality 
in which your seeds have been grown, for it is a 
fact that the seeds of certain plants grown in the 
irrigated regions of the West will not germinate 
forty per cent, if kept over one year, and that seeds 
grown in a mild climate will germinate in a colder 
climate, but the plants that spring from them are 
unable to endure the tests found in the more severe 
climate. 

5th. Adulteration and Misbranding. The 
author can hardly write upon this head with that 
composure one should possess to write unbiasedly. 

If the adulteration of seeds were made a crime 
punishable with the punishments of the Inquisi- 
tion, the punishment would be none too severe. 
And why should he not write with righteous indig- 
nation upon this subject 1 For the past eight years 
he has learned from experience and investigation 
of the great fertilizing value of the vetch plant. 
By much writing in farm journals and through his 
Book of Vetch he has attempted to disseminate 
the virtues of this plant to those who are engaged 
in the business of farming. But what was his 
consternation when he learned that many had 
failed with the plant; and what was his indigna- 
tion when he learned that the cause of the failures 
was adulteration and misbranding of vetch seed. 
The government through its agricultural depart- 



156 THE BUSINESS OF FAEMING 

ment spent a year investigating the adulteration 
of vetch seed, and the results of this investigation 
were enough to work up the righteous indignation 
of any one. Out of 303 samples examined, 187 or 
62 per cent, were adulterated. Five samples did 
not contain a single seed of the variety named and 
others were mixed with other vetches. Of all the 
vetch seed purchased as of a certain variety, but 
55.9 per cent, was capable of germination. Do 
you wonder then that the author can not write 
upon this branch of the seed subject with compo- 
sure? 

And within the past year the author contracted 
with a prominent seed firm for them to grow 
him one thousand bushels of pea seed at four 
dollars per bushel, the same to be suitable for seed 
purposes. When these seed came in and the 
author examined them he found so great an un- 
uniformity in them that to plant them would mean 
a loss of thousands of dollars. It was clear that 
the seedsmen had practiced the "blend act" to the 
limit, for the greater part of the seed were small 
and immature. Of course the author rejected the 
seed, yet the seedsman is contending that the seed 
are the very best because they were all planted 
from good seed stock, which, as we have shown, 
means nothing where conditions necessarj^ for the 
proper development of seeds are lacking. 

We have written enough upon seeds and seed 
selection to show the great importance of the sub- 
ject as it pertains to the business of farming. 
But there is another element as important as good 
seed, and which further demonstrates the truth 



SEED SELECTION AND PLANTING 157 

stated in the beginning of this chapter, that there 
must be a harmonious combination of all the ele- 
ments that enter into the business of farming to 
make it a success. This last element is the plant- 
ing of the seed. 

The best seed ever grown if not properly 
planted is no better than the most worthless seed. 
And that branch of the business of farming more 
clearly demonstrates the necessity of mixing 
brains, thought and study, with the business of 
farming. 

Scarcely two varieties of seeds can be planted 
in the same manner as to depth, season, etc. 
Seeds vary in size and character of covering. 
Some send forth the tenderest plants, and some 
the hardy plant. Frost or cold will kill the one 
and not harm the other. Some seeds that even 
send forth the fairly hardy plant, if planted at 
too great a depth will not germinate at all. This 
is exemplified in field and sugar corn. The seeds 
of these two plants, planted three to four inches 
in depth in cold, compact soil, will scarcely germin- 
ate and grow twenty-five per cent., and generally 
not at aU. 

In many plants the character of growth is such 
that if the seeds are planted at too great a depth 
it is necessary that the plant readjust itself to the 
conditions of planting which result in a checked 
or stunted growth. An illustration of this prin- 
ciple is found in the corn plant. Corn has two 
sets of roots, one above the surface and the other 
underground. The ones above the surface are the 
brace roots which shoot out from the plant above 
its first joints about an inch above the grain. 



158 THE BUSINESS OF FAEMING 

Plant the grain or seed too deep, a new and un- 
natural joint must be formed at tlie surface (for 
it is never formed under the surface) from which 
the brace roots begin to grow. So corn planted 
at a greater depth than one and one-half inches 
must readjust its plant so as to meet this depth of 
planting and form the unnatural joint for its brace 
roots and in so doing, its growth receives a check 
that affects it and its life. 

Seeds must be planted as nature intended they 
should be. The small alfalfa seed sown at too 
great a depth cannot germinate, and yet if given 
the light or no covering, may encounter conditions 
that prevent its growth. So the reader can read- 
ily see the necessity of mixing brains with seeds, 
seed selection, and even seed planting. We must 
know the characteristic of each and every seed 
we use in the business of farming, and learn how 
to plant them to bring the greatest success. And 
in this study we will see the importance of prop- 
erly preparing the seed bed so that the right soil 
covering can be given seeds. If you could but sit 
down and figure out the loss that occurs each yeai^, 
from the improper planting of clover seed you cer- 
tainly would strive to figure out in your individual 
case the method of proper sowing so as to avoid 
your loss at least. Yet farmers go on and on fol- 
lowing the old methods of sowing clover seed that 
have been in vogue for years without any appar- 
ent reason for so doing other than that father did 
it that way. 

To aid and protect the business of fanning in 
seed selection there ought to be a national law 



SEED SELECTION AND PLANTING 159 

with severe penalties for its violation along the 
following lines : 

1st. — Providing that all seeds offered for sale 
must be true to name or not be mixed with noxious 
seeds. 

2d. — Providing against fraudulent and mislead- 
ing advertisements of seeds. 

3d. — Providing that seeds are misbranded and 
fraudulent, when they are ununiform and of low 
vitality. 

4th. — Providing for statement on label or pack- 
age stating the state or locality where grown. 



CHAPTER XII 

OTHER AIDS TO THE BUSINESS OF FARMING 

IN the preparation of this book it has not been 
the purpose of the author to discuss the details 
or the practicability of growing the different crops 
grown upon our various farm lands, showing how 
they should be planted, cultivated, harvested and 
utilized. This could not be done in one volume, 
and besides, it is the aim of this book to so 
present the importance of the business of 
farming, that its efficiency will be increased 
and the whole business may be put on a 
more scientific and businesslike basis, and to 
further show that it is a business as profitable 
and with as many opportunities of right home 
building and living as any other business. To do 
this it is not necessary to discuss various farm 
crops and how to grow, harvest and sell them. 

We have already stated that those who own or 
occupy farms must themselves determine the kind 
of crops to which their land is adapted. But they 
must study market facilities and conditions for 
their lands may be especially suitable for the 
growing of certain crops for which there might be 
no market at all. 

We know of no business that requires as much 
mixing of brains with its details as does the busi- 
ness of farming. First, we must study our soils 

160 



Comparison of Com and Cotton Yields 



Prize Crop Contest 

of I hi' 

Texas Industrial Congress 

f.ir li)l2 




LAPoeST PRIZE H/AA-AVO yitlD 






What has b€<?n accomplished 

by :i lc->v 

can bt' appruximatfd 




POSSIBILITIES OF SCIENTIFIC FARMING EDUCA- 
TION PUT INTO PRACTICE. 

The above shows the accomplishment of Texas farm boys and 
girls, the Texas "Farmers of To-Morrow." 



OTHER AIDS TO FARMING 161 

to ascertain their needs, and then we must know 
how to supply that need. We must know how to 
prepare our soils for the crops, and how to plant, 
cultivate and harvest, sell, or utilize the crop. 
We must know about all the aids, hindrances and 
discouragements of the business. And we must 
know the characteristics of different farm crops 
so as to ascertain if we can profitably grow them. 

Crop knowledge has been so disseminated in 
recent years that most farmers know what crops 
are suitable for their localities. Yet we must not 
forget that it is a fact, which has been forcibly 
demonstrated in recent years, that there are many 
crops that can be grown with great profit not only 
in dollars and cents, but for the compensation of 
the soil, which were formerly unknown to the 
farmer or were believed to be unsuitable for gen- 
eral or extensive culture. As for illustration, take 
alfalfa, vetch, soy beans, cow peas, and numerous 
other crops that might be mentioned. A few 
years ago the growing of these crops was looked 
upon as the fads of impracticable men. But now 
we know they are the godsends of agriculture. 

When the farmer determines the crops he is to 
grow, then he must begin to look about for the, 
hindrances he is to encounter, or the aids he needs 
in the growing of the crops he selects for his land. 

We have shown the importance of having a 
good soil, how it may be secured and put in order 
for crop growing, and many of the hindrances the 
farmer will encounter and aids he will need, yet 
there are others worthy of consideration and that 
will help him in his business which we will for a 
time consider. 



162 THE BUSINESS OF FAKMING 

PKEVENTION OF DISEASE OF LIVE STOCK, ETC. 

In the production of live stock on the farm 
every precaution must be taken to prevent and 
cure disease to which all animals are subject. The 
prevention of disease is the most important, for an 
''ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." 
The stockman who does not do all the things neces- 
sary to prevent disease has already failed in his 
business. The same is true of the orchardman, 
the grower of small fruits, or the grower of 
grains. 

Disease, death and decay seem to be written 
on every living thing. While they cannot be elim- 
inated they can be controlled, and the mighty brain 
of man has wrought out methods and devices for 
this purpose. 

The insect pest of the animal and vegetable 
kingdom had wrought a mighty loss upon the farm 
until insecticides were formulated, and spraying 
and dipping devices were constructed by which 
they could be applied to animals, trees, seeds and 
plants, and the loss was stayed. 

So the farm without the best formulas for in- 
secticides and the best spraying devices, is not 
equipped for its business and failure is its doom. 
Without these aids live stock cannot be reared, 
orchard and other fruits be grown suitable for 
market, nor certain vegetables like potatoes, can- 
not be produced in paying quality or quantity. 

CULTIVATION OF CROPS. 

The cultivation of farm crops has always been 
a necessary adjunct to successful agriculture. It 



OTHER AIDS TO FARMING 163 

increases in importance the longer our soils are 
subjected to cultivation. New soils will grow 
crops with little cultivation, and even the char- 
acter of the cultivation upon these soils is unim- 
portant. But our older soils have lost their loose- 
ness and organic matter content, and moisture 
holding capacity, and so the cultivation of crops 
growing upon them becomes a definite science that 
must be practiced to insure success in crop produc- 
tion. 

When the author in his youth cultivated corn 
upon his father's pioneer farm, planted between 
the stumps of the newly cleared soil, it did not 
much matter whether his old double shovel plow 
with shovels as large as the blade of an old fash- 
ioned spade, plowed into the soil a half inch or 
six inches in depth, for the soil was so loose and 
full of fertility that it produced a wilderness of 
com, no matter whether it was cultivated or not. 
But that kind of cultivation practiced upon the 
same land now with the same kind of a cultivator, 
would prove disastrous to the corn crop. 

The successful cultivators for our lands, long 
subject to cultivation and poorly fed, are those 
with which we can give shallow and level cultiva- 
tion, enough to kill weeds and give the one to two 
inch soil mulch. 

We do not emphasize enough the importance of 
cultivation. We are content if we cultivate our 
corn and vegetable crops three or four times, 
which is not enough. There are times, as in 
periods of droughts, when we should keep the cul- 
tivators moving until crops are safe from the on- 
slaught of dry weather. 



164 THE BUSINESS OF FARMING 

Orchard or small fruit growing cannot be made 
a success without constant summer cultivation, 
yet many orchards are never cultivated. 

Wheat is benefited by spring harrowing, which 
is nothing more than cultivation. Alfalfa grow- 
ing is likewise made doubly successful by intensive 
harrowing after each cutting. 

CROP ROTATION. 

It is constantly being urged that crop rotation 
is the salvation of the soil and so is one of the 
greatest aids to the business of farming. And 
yet crop rotation as practiced in the past has been 
responsible for nearly all our worn and worn-out 
soils. In districts where it has been the most 
practiced we have the greatest area of these soils. 
Crop Rotation is a gay deceiver. She has cast 
her alluring smile towards the husbandman, he 
embraced her, hoping she would restore his sick 
and dying soils, but she only led him farther into 
the worn soil ''red light district" to be the greater 
contaminated with its shame and sickening life. 

We believe in crop rotation rightly practiced. 
But it is not a "cure all" for the diseases of the 
soil. The rotation of com, oats, wheat and clover, 
so long practiced in the corn belt, under the belief 
that it was the right system of farming, and was 
all that was needed to keep up soil fertility, has 
driven millions of acres of our best lands into 
fertility bankruptcy, just as it drove much of our 
abandoned soils of the East into fertility bank- 
ruptcy. It is a system of soil robbery so long 
practiced along the highway of agriculture that 
it has become like the vice " to be hated needs but 



OTHEE AIDS TO FAEMING 165 

to be seen; yet seen too oft, familiar with her 
face, we first endure, then pity, then embrace. ' ' 

Crop rotation to be an aid to the business of 
farming must be supplemented with that farm 
procedure that provides for the yearly feeding of 
the soil with an ample supply of plant food. It 
has failed in the past because it was unaided by 
this feature of farming. The plant food to be 
supplied yearly is that found in, or provided by 
animal and green manuring, and the minerals like 
potash, phosphorus, limestone, etc. 

GEOUND LIMESTONE. 

The use of ground limestone has become an im- 
portant factor in soil building and should be ap- 
plied liberally to our soils. In the limestone re- 
gions of the world, if inhabited by a civilized 
people, you will always find prosperous, sturdy 
people and great wealth. In these regions the 
limestone has been disintegrated and distributed 
through the soil by the processes of nature, which 
is proof that when applied by man it should be 
in its raw state ground finely and unburned. 
Burned limestone becomes caustic lime and so has 
the power to eat and destroy, and hence will eat 
up and consume the organic content of our soils, 
and thus destroy one of the most valuable elements 
of good soil. The raw ground limestone corrects 
the acidity of soils, thus neutralizing the acids 
formed by decay of live organic matter, or in any 
other manner, thus paving the way for the suc- 
cessful growing of the legumes. The ground 
limestone can be applied in any quantity without 
injury to the soil or crops, so the amount to ap- 



166 THE BUSINESS OF FARMING 

ply to your soils should be governed by the con- 
tents of your pocket book, for even the application 
of as much as ten tons to the acre would result 
in no harm but much profit. 

RAW ROCK PHOSPHATE, POTASH AND NITRATE OF SODA. 

Raw rock phosphate finely ground, of the best 
quality, applied in amounts from three hundred 
pounds up to a ton to the acre, and used in con- 
nection with animal and green manuring crops, 
aids much in soil building and fertility mainten- 
ance. 

Potash and nitrate of soda are also valuable 
aids. 

COMMERCIAL FERTILIZERS. 

The marketing and use of commercial fertilizers 
have risen to an immense volume in the business 
of farming. While all sections of our country are 
using it, yet some sections use it in immense quan- 
tities. It is a subject that requires the most care- 
ful consideration. If it is a valuable aid to the 
business of farming, then the fact should be uni- 
versally known that the soil may receive more of 
its benefits. But if there is no merit in its use, 
certainly those who are engaged in the business of 
farming ought to know it, that the great waste of 
its use be stayed. 

We have tried to consider this subject free from 
bias or prejudice. We do not deal directly or in- 
directly in any article of trade or commerce pro- 
posed as a substitute for commercial fertilizers. 
We have done much experimenting with it, and 
have studied everything upon the subject we could 






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OTHEE AIDS TO FARMING 167 

lay our hands upon, and so from an unbiased 
standpoint have reached the following conclusions. 

Too many brands of commercial fertilizers con- 
tain as their chief constituent a filler of no fertiliz- 
ing value whatever. As an illustration, peat 
taken from swamps is largely used as a filler. 
Peat is simply rotten vegetation or organic matter 
unmixed with soil minerals which has reached that 
stage where it is dead organic matter. It is de- 
void of bacterial life. It has been arrested in its 
stages of decomposition before it was worked up 
into humus. If the vegetation of which it is en- 
tirely composed had been mixed with soil minerals 
at the time or immediately after it was growing, 
then it would have been a valuable soil constituent, 
and a fertile soil would have been constructed. 

But being dead organic matter it has no fertiliz- 
ing value when applied to other soils. If applied 
in large quantities to soil it would have some value 
as aiding in the conserving of moisture, but it would 
of itself furnish no plant food. Soils consisting 
of peat may grow one or two crops when first sub- 
jected to cultivation, but attempting to grow crops 
upon them afterwards is an expensive experiment, 
as the author has found by personal experience. 
They can be put through what the laymen of agri- 
culture call a "taming process," by which they 
eventually can be worked into fairly good soils. 
This "taming process" is tramping them with live 
stock, the application to them of rock phosphate, 
potash, animal manures, and, strange as it may 
seem, green manuring. We have known muck 
soils to be greatly benefited with the growing and 
plowing under of rye upon them. 



168 THE BUSINESS OF FARMING 

Now, the using of this peat as filler by manu- 
facturers of commercial fertilizers is a very profit- 
able operation for the fertilizer manufacturer. It 
is selling this peat at from sixteen to forty dollars 
per ton and the user applying it in the manner usu- 
ally applied gets no value in return for its use. 
Even assuming it has a value, would it not be more 
economical for the farmer to buy the peat in car 
or wagon loads and save the immense profit made 
upon it when sold as commercial fertilizers! 

Commercial fertilizers at their best are but soil 
or crop stimulants. Physicians use certain medi- 
cines as stimulants or aids in curing the diseases 
of men. But they never hope to make a perfect 
or permanent cure with their use alone. No soil 
can be built up, or its fertility even maintained, 
by the use of stimulants. They may be used as 
valuable aids, but like men, soils must be fed with 
the food from which real soil tissue can be builded. 
So the constant use of commercial fertilizers 
alone makes the soil ''poorer and poorer." No 
permanent system of agriculture can be builded 
upon the foundation of commercial fertilizers 
used alone. When honestly compounded, and 
used with animal and green manuring, we do not 
condemn their use, but some times wonder whether 
their constituents can not be obtained for the 
soil in other ways and at cheaper prices. 

NITROGEN. 

Nitrogen is one of the three soil elements, the 
most precious, the most costly, and hence, one of 
the greatest aids to the business of farming. And 
yet contradictory as it may seem, it can be secured 



OTHER AIDS TO FARMING 169 

for the business cheaper than any other soil food 
element. 

There is three million dollars' worth of it rest- 
ing upon every acre of our soil and owned by 
every owner of the soil for the title to your land 
according to the ''law of the land," extends up- 
ward as far as you can see, and downward as far 
as you can dig. This nitrogen is one of the main 
elements of the air and is available for the use of 
man, and God in his infinite goodness and wisdom 
has provided the way and the means by which it 
can be taken from the air and put into the soil 
for the use of growing crops and for the benefit 
of man. The way by which this nitrogen is taken 
from the air and put into the soil is one of God's 
mysteries, the unfolding of which to mankind is 
more interesting than the unfolding of any of his 
other mysteries of sky, earth, or water, and its 
study is more entertaining than any entertain- 
ment devised by man. 

The way is through the legumes — those plants 
that bear their seeds in a pod, which have upon 
their roots the little tubercles or nodules, which 
are nothing more than the cottages, or mansions, 
or dwelling places of the teaming millions of bac- 
teria that the unaided human eye can not see. 
This infinitesimal insect life are the busy workers 
that live lives of service; the service of drawing 
the nitrogen from the air and working it up for 
the soil's use, and the use of growing plants. 
They give service to man, thus exemplifying the 
wonderful law of service about which we have al- 
ready written. 

And here again the human brain so wonderful 



170 THE BUSINESS OF FARMING 

in devising schemes to aid nature in her work of 
service has furnished the device by which we too 
can give service to this legume insect life and give 
another aid to the business of farming. Soils 
often reach a stage where they are unfavorable for 
this bacterial life. Soil environments are such 
that these bacteria can not live and flourish in 
them and so these conditions must be corrected by 
the use of the correcting agencies of limestone, 
manures, etc., about which we have also writ- 
ten. 

But when we have corrected those soil condi- 
tions the bacteria are not there, they must be se- 
cured and moved into their new homes we have 
prepared for them. We do this either by the 
transfer of soil largely inhabited by them or by 
what is known as artificial cultures prepared in 
laboratories, that is, these bacteria are bred in 
laboratories and are transferred to seeds which 
are planted in soils made favorable for these bac- 
teria. These prepared cultures are put up in 
forms with directions for their application to 
seeds, which are easily followed and if they are 
active, and are applied strictly according to direc- 
tions, and in favorable soil, can be secured for 
the legumes as successfully as by any other proc- 
ess, as the author knows from actual experience 
in the field. There have been failures in this 
method just as there have been and always will 
be in all lines of farming. 

We too often allow the failure we make in the 
business of farming to overwhelm us. We fail 
in a crop this year then do not grow it the next 
when conditions are favorable for its greater sue- 



OTHER AIDS TO FARMING 171 

cess. We try an experiment, or plant a new plant, 
and fail, and then condemn it in the most bitter 
terms when we ourselves are most likely to blame 
for the failure. Oh ! that we would but remember 
*Hhat every failure is but a step to success," and 
**that failure is in a sense, the highway to suc- 
cess." 

No matter in what business we may be engaged, 
we must keep everlastingly at the game if we 
would succeed. The man that makes a success 
at farming maps out a plan of crop growing for 
each year and for a series of years, and follows 
it closely no matter what the vicissitudes of any 
season may be, for he knows that if he fails one 
year he will succeed the next, and that the gen- 
eral average of several seasons will show the 
profit. 

We must needs expect failure in many of our un- 
dertakings, but if we are to let this discourage us, 
we had as well quit before we begin. Every prog- 
ress that has been made in agriculture or in any 
other human enterprise, has been made through 
numerous failures. Failure is the price of suc- 
cess, a motto we must remember if we are to suc- 
ceed. 

THE FALLOW. 

The art of fallowing has been regarded as a 
great aid to the business of farming. To fallow 
originally meant to plow or till the land through 
the summer season, without sowing it to any crop. 
Sinclair said, ' ' By a complete summer fallow, land 
is rendered tender and mellow. The fallow gives 
it a better tilth than can be given by a fallow 



172 THE BUSINESS OF FARMING 

crop," and Mortimer said, ''The plowing of fal- 
lows is a benefit to land." 

One Roman writer said that the foundation of 
Roman agriculture was the fallow. But the fal- 
lowing as practiced by the Romans meant plowing 
and constant and thorough tillage during the fal- 
low season, which was indeed valuable and a 
great aid to the business of farming, but as good 
results can be obtained by the good plowing and 
thorough tillage and the planting of a crop. The 
Roman idea of fallowing was to leave off the 
crop for a season. 

To fallow really means resting the land or al- 
lowing land to lie a year or more untilled and un- 
seeded to any crop. It was simply the old notion 
that land uncropped for a year was resting, al- 
though it really was working harder than when 
growing crops, for when the husbandman turned 
it over to the supposed rest period. Nature took 
it in hand and put it to growing weeds. It has 
never been Nature's purpose that land should rest 
unless it was in the winter season. 

Fallowing as practiced by the plowing and til- 
lage method if continued through a season would 
likely result in a most wasteful method of farm- 
ing, especially if the soil had not been deeply 
plowed and was subject to washing. Heavy rains 
would seriously damage it. Deep plowing, thor- 
ough tillage for a short season, supplemented 
with the good cover crop, will give the best re- 
sults to soils, for the cover crop supplements the 
short fallow with the great advantages of soil 
covering and added fertility that the cover crop 
gives to the soil. 




RESULTS OF BACTERIA INOCULATION. 
The peas on the right were inoculated with artificial cultures, 
while those on the left were not inoculated. Both grew side by 
side upon the same character of soil, from same seed planted 
at the same time. Both bunches have the same number of plant 
stems. 



OTHER AIDS TO FARMING 173 

One Roman agriculture writer was so enthused 
with the fallowing idea that he even advocated 
that the lover should allow fallow seasons to in- 
tervene in his courtship, an advice not likely to 
be followed by the ardent loving ST^ain and las- 
sie. 

Fallowing, according to the first method men- 
tioned, is perhaps necessary in carrying on dry 
farming in the semi-arid regions, but in regions of 
ample rainfall we do not consider it profitable 
unless combined with a cover or green manuring 
crop. 

THE moon's influence. 

A notion obtains that the moon has an influence 
on land as well as water and so becomes an aid 
to the business of farming. 

Most of us regard this as mere superstition and 
say we do not plant our crops in the moon, but in 
the ground when it has been properly prepared 
and is in good condition for planting the seed. 
Yet there are many men who have made an in- 
tense study of the moon's influence on land, 
plants, and other features of farming, and argue 
if the moon influences the great oceans and causes 
the ebb and flow of tides, why does it not affect the 
land? 

The following account of the moon's supposed 
influence given by Samuel Campbell is intensely 
interesting, although the results named might be 
accounted for by the influence of other agencies. 

"To get the best results: Sow or plant all grain (like wheat, 
barley, oats, corn, timothy, clover, hemp, flax, and similar 
things that go to top) in the light of the moon (from new 



174 THE BUSINESS OF FARMING 

to full moon). Plant everything that goes to root (like pota- 
toes, beets, turnips, carrots, onions, peanuts, etc.), in the dark 
of the moon (last quarter before new moon). 

"As a test: Say you have a twenty-acre field for wheat; 
sow one-half in dark of moon, and other half in light of moon. 
Any man passing along by the field when the grain is ripe, 
can see the difference in quality and height. The lark sit- 
ting on the fence, singing, can see the difference; and should 
you scare her from her perch she would certainly fly into 
the tallest grain to hide, which would be that which was 
planted in the light of the moon. 

"I do not mean to say that so doing will insure your crops; 
seed and soil conditions must likewise be right and seasonable. 

"Another test: Dig your post-holes and place fence-posts 
and nail on your boards in the light of the moon. After a 
winter's freezing and thawing your fence is tipped to one 
side and the posts have heaved up, more or less. Again, 
dig the post-holes in the dark of the moon. Let it freeze 
and thaw, — your fence-posts remain just where you placed 
them. 

"A third test : Say you are going to shingle shed or house. 
Shingle one-half of same in the dark of the moon, then finish 
shingling the other half in the light of the moon. The shin- 
gles placed on roof in the dark of the moon will lay flat and 
smooth; the other half of roof shingled will turn up a little 
at ends. 

"In Sonoma County, Cal., I saw where a man had trimmed 
two rows of prane trees in the dark of the moon. The tip 
ends of trimmed limbs died one and a half to two inches back. 
He pruned the balance of the orchard in the light of the moon, 
and the limbs healed over on the tips where cut off. 

"Again : Place a large two-inch-thick plank, or a large flat 
sandstone, on your blue-grass lawn in the light of the moon, 
and let it remain during the summer mouths. The grass 
underneath will turn a whitish yellow and continue to live 
and grow. Place same during the dark of the moon, and let 
it remain same lengih of time, and the grass under plank or 
stone will die, roots and all. 

"Let the moon shine upon all kinds of edge tools for a 
length of time and it will take the temper out. 



OTHER AIDS TO FARMING 175 

"Kill a corn-fed hog or kill a corn-fed fat beef in the 
dark of the moon, and when you come to fry or cook the 
meat — it goes to grease and shrivels up and is not fit to eat, 
— dry and no substance in it. Kill same in the light of the 
moon and you will have nice plump meat. 

''From observation I believe that not only the sun and moon, 
but the planets at certain times when near this earth, have 
their disturbing effects on all living, growing and maturing 
nature or animate or inanimate objects. 

"All nature must have rest at some time. A man who shaves 
himself knows how to hone and strop his razor. At times it 
seems to be dull, and it pulls. Let him lay the razor aside 
for a length of time; then when he picks it up it shaves easy 
and he wonders why it is now so sharp. This is nature's rest. 
Man and beast, flesh and blood, must have rest. The earth 
in many localities freezes up in winter time; the rivers and 
lakes freeze up and all nature is covered with snow; the crops 
will not grow, — ■this is nature's rest. 

"The commanders of all ships can buy books a year ahead, 
giving the serving of the tides at every port; all calculations 
being made from the moon. If the moon has such an effect 
upon the great oceans, why shouldn't it affect the land? It 
shines upon both land and sea. 

"Any man who has the time can demonstrate this to his 
own satisfaction, and he will find it true." 

When the author read the foregoing account 
some seven years ago he determined to put the 
moon's influence to a test in the planting of eighty 
acres of garden peas for his canning factory. 

The eighty acres was divided into fields and 
numbered or designated by name, and a careful 
record of the time of planting was kept. The 
seed used was uniform and of the best quality, 
and character of soil was such that a good crop of 
peas was possible upon each and every part of the 
entire eighty acres. Upon the different fields 
peas were planted in all the different stages of the 



176 THE BUSINESS OF FARMING 

moon obtaining during the planting season, as the 
planting season extended over the full period of 
one month, and planting was begun so as to get 
the advantage of planting in the light and dark 
of the moon, and its first quarter, half moon, full 
moon, last half and last quarter. 

The planting came fully up to what was neces- 
sary to make a good experiment and growing sea- 
son was favorable. According to the theory out- 
lined above, the peas planted in the light of the 
moon should have borne the bumper crop, but 
when this planting was nearly ready to harvest a 
severe hail storm swept across the farm, and while 
the hail did not destroy the vines, yet every pod 
on the vines had been hit by five or more hail 
stones, which resulted in the destruction of the 
crop, as peas never mature when hail stones hit 
the pods before the peas are ready to harvest. 

This storm was peculiar in the respect that there 
was no hail on either side of the farm, but of 
course we could not say that the influence of the 
moon had anything to do with this fact. 

Notwithstanding the hail storm damaged the 
peas planted in the light of the moon, yet it was 
easy to see that the crop would have been splendid 
if it had not met with misfortune. 

The peas planted at the time of the other stages 
of the moon also made a good crop. In fine, we 
could see no difference in the productiveness of 
the crop upon any of the fields. One planting was 
as good as the other. 

We have planted potatoes both in the light and 
dark of the moon and never observed any differ- 
ence, yet we have always made it a rule to plant 



OTHER AIDS TO FARMING 177 

potatoes in the dark of the moon, and we plant 
quite a large acreage every year, and there has 
never been a year in the past six years but what 
we had a good crop, and our neighbors' potatoes 
generally were a failure, although we never ob- 
served whether they were planted by the moon. 
But we have always attributed our success to the 
fact that we heavily manured our soil with green 
manures, plowed, cultivated, and sprayed well. 

We are not prepared to say that the moon has 
such influences upon land as well as upon sea 
which can be utilized as an aid to the business of 
farming, but the fact that there have been men in 
all ages of the world's history who, from study, 
observation, and experiment, have reached the 
conclusion that it does have such influences, it be- 
comes worthy of some consideration. 

IMPKOVED FARM MACHINERY. 

Improved farm machinery has been a mighty 
aid to the business of farming as we have shown 
in the chapter upon the care of farm machinery, 
but in improved farm machinery there is concealed 
a peril to the business to which attention must be 
called. We recently heard a noted farm lecturer 
declare from the platform that the invention of 
the reaper has led to the feeding of the world's 
hungry. But it will also eventually lead to the 
world's starvation unless the owners of the reaper 
become soil builders instead of soil destroyers, 
for, the advent of the reaper has made extensive 
farming possible upon a larger scale than has 
ever been known in the world's history, and ex- 
tensive farming has always led to soil exhaustion. 



178 THE BUSINESS OF FAEMING 

Extensive farming fosters greed and avarice, 
and when these sins get possession of the exten- 
sive farmer, he drives his soil to the limit of its 
production of the crops that exhaust the soil of its 
fertility. He is content with the small profit per 
acre, and, to fill his coffers, extends his acreage, 
waxes rich, and though his soil is dying for want 
of soil food, yet he whips it on to its task of pro- 
duction of the crops he can sell for money. 

The invention and use of improved farm ma- 
chinery will lead to the pillage of the soil unless it 
be operated by men imbued with the true theory 
of soil maintenance, so if it does not become the 
main object of the business of farming to train 
men along the lines of promoting soil fertility and 
a permanent agriculture, improved farm machin- 
ery in the end availeth nothing. 

If it be true as some claim that we have reached 
the age of the "Dawn of Plenty" on account of 
the invention and use of improved farm machin- 
ery, we can not hope to maintain that delightful 
state where every man, woman and child go to 
bed every night fed with enough food to satisfy, 
unless we maintain the fertility of the soil, for we 
no longer have the new lands in abundance. The 
lands that have been farmed for a generation or 
more must mainly feed us or we perish, and they 
will never feed us unless they are farmed with 
different methods than they have been in the past. 
The method by which they have been farmed has 
led to the great loss of soil fertility, and if con- 
tinued, will lead to the complete loss of soil fer- 
tility. 

If the United States has had a plethora of farm 



OTHER AIDS TO FARMING 179 

products in the past it has been because she is a 
large country possessed of a varied climate and 
containing a vast amount of new soils stored with 
enough fertility to last for a number of years. 
She has never faced a famine as the countries of 
the old world face them almost yearly. But what 
will happen when our lands have all been brought 
into cultivation, and our older lands have been 
so neglected that they will lose their crop produc- 
ing power? It would be but repeating history, 
for the older nations of the world were at one time 
in their history possessed of an abundance of fer- 
tile soils and famine was unknown to them. Even 
one crop failure in this land of ours would bring 
us face to face with a famine, because we have no 
Joseph's Egyptian filled storehouses dotting our 
land. 

It was recently promulgated by our agriculture 
department that only a small per cent, of our till- 
able lands were under cultivation. But these 
statistics were misleading because a large amount 
of our unoccupied lands can not be successfully 
tilled, because rainfall is not sufficient upon them 
for needs of the growing crops, and the problem 
of irrigating them is impracticable because a suffi- 
cient amount of water could not be secured for 
irrigation projects. 

But we have not yet reached the greatest age of 
perfected farm machinery. The time is right at 
hand when the small farm tractor, cheap and sub- 
stantial, will do the plowing and preliminary till- 
age before seed planting, and the dawn of cultivat- 
ing implements moved with the motive power of 
electricity made upon the farms is about to ilium- 



180 THE BUSINESS OF FARMING 

inate the landscapes of the business of farming. 
An idle dream, do you say? It was so said of the 
improved harvester and the farm tractor. But 
the dreams came true and the business of farming 
was bettered, and the weary toil of binding wheat 
by hand and following the two horse plow, that 
drove thousands of us from the farm, is no longer 
a part of our farm economy. Therefore, for im- 
proved farm machinery to be an aid to the busi- 
ness of farming it must be supplemented with wise 
methods of soil building or fertility maintenance. 

THE SILO. 

We have already said something about the silo 
on the farm. When its merits are more fully un- 
derstood no farm will be without one or more of 
them. 

The best time to feed stock for best results is 
in the winter season. The cold stimulates their 
appetites, there is not the insect pest that summer 
season begets, nor heat to annoy and take off fat. 
In fine, the winter season is the most favorable 
time for animal life upon the farm. If this can 
then be supplemented with feed that is cheap, ap- 
petizing, fattening and healthful, which will 
produce milk in abundance, and which can be pro- 
cured largely from the utilization of some of the 
by-products of the farm, at the least labor and can 
be fed with little labor and waste, we have the 
ideal combination for successful stock production 
with its allied products. 

All this can be done by the use of the silo. The 
crop chiefly used for filling the silo is ready for 
use at a time when there is no rush work to be 




THE SILO 

The silo rightly constructed is the forerunner of soil fertility, 
the conserver of the by-products of the farm, the mint that 
coins live stock into dollars at the minimum labor and expense, 
and a promoter of scenic beauty of farm home surroundings. 
(Courtesy National Fire Proofing Company, Pittsburgh, Pa.) 



OTHER AIDS TO FARMING 181 

done upon the farm. It can be put up econom- 
ically and without exposure to severe weather. 
It utilizes a by-product, the com stalk, usually 
wasted upon the farm. The food the silo makes 
can be fed with little labor and without waste if 
proper care is taken in building the silo and in 
filling same, and this food is ready for use at the 
most favorable time for feeding. 

The silo should be well built upon a most sub- 
stantial foundation and of the best material. It 
ought not to be constructed of wood because the 
wood silo requires care and watchfulness in the 
summer time to keep it from going to staves, is 
easily blown over by winds and storms, and re- 
quires painting. 

The silo should be attractively built, as such a 
silo adds much to the looks of the farm premises, 
which we have tried to emphasize as being one of 
the essential things of the business of farming. 

The material for filling the silo should be put 
into it in the right manner, which is but the simple 
process of keeping the material level and each 
layer well packed in all its parts, in the process of 
filling the silo. 

STANDAEDIZATION. 

Standardization upon the farm means the classi- 
fying of the different farm products produced 
upon the farm with the different classes of quality 
which may be established by custom and dictation 
of trade and commerce or general consent. 

Wheat, corn, oats and other grains are stand- 
ardized into classes or grades of quality and the 
same is true of every farm product. In ficxing 



182 THE BUSINESS OF FARMING 

the standards of different grades many things are 
taken into consideration, like appearance, uniform- 
ity, mixing of varieties or breeds, moisture con- 
tent, grading, etc. 

While the standardization of farm products may 
be made a great aid to the business of farming, 
yet it is too oft made the cloak with which to cover 
a multitude of sins of dishonest farm produce 
dealers. 

In standardizing corn the moisture content of 
the corn determines largely the grade to which 
each particular lot of corn belongs. Often nice 
appearing corn seemingly free of large amounts 
of moisture is shipped to distant buyers which is 
declared to contain so large an amount of mois- 
ture as to give it the lowest grade upon which a 
large reduction in price is made. If the shipper 
does not have a moisture tester and so does not 
have his corn tested before shipping, he is at the 
mercy of the dishonest grain dealer who can give 
the corn shipped any moisture test he may desire. 

Similar conditions of affairs obtain in the ship- 
ment of other farm produce, and is one of the 
menaces of the business of farming that can be 
eliminated largely by drastic legislation and co- 
operation of the honest men engaged in the busi- 
ness of buying farm produce. 

But notwithstanding we may have the dishonest 
buyer of farm produce, yet the fact remains that 
there are still scores of honest men buying farm 
produce who are constantly on the lookout for 
quality and standardized farm produce. The day 
when any kind of farm produce taken to market 
with utter disregard of quality, attractiveness, or 



OTHEE AIDS TO FARMING 183 

merit, has passed away. The farmer to be suc- 
cessful in the marketing of his produce must grade 
it, and brand each grade honestly, and misrepre- 
sent nothing. 

It should be the aim of every man engaged in 
the business of farming to do everything that 
can be done to produce the quality and then grade 
his produce and sell only the best grades, and as 
far as possible, utilize his inferior grades upon the 
farm in the feeding of stock. 

''Fancy" produce of all kinds marketed in the 
most attractive manner as to packages, appear- 
ance, or proper handling, always do, and always 
will command the highest price, and the grower 
and seller of such products will soon achieve such 
a reputation that the demand for his produce will 
exceed his supply. 

Standardization enters into everything. There 
are standards in brains and the man possessed of 
the best brain in any of the professions and 
trades is enabled to do his work with the greatest 
skill and power and so commands the greatest 
wage. The best merchandise brings the great- 
est and most profitable price. The best musician, 
and the author that writes the best book, attract 
the greatest number of hearers and readers. The 
best soil is in the best demand at the best price. 
So the man engaged in the business of farming 
who produces the finest grains, vegetables, fruits 
and farm animals, though he live the farthest re- 
moved from market will always find the buyer 
willing to pay the price, wending his way through 
inferior unstandardized farm produce to his door- 
way. 



184 THE BUSINESS OF FARMING 

It is waste of time, energy and money, to work 
for better markets safeguarded from dishonest 
dealers, until we first standardize farm produce, 
for when we accomplish standardization we have 
more than half won the fight for the best safe- 
guarded markets. When the farmer begins to 
standardize his products he becomes the true and 
honest tiller of the soil, for he soon learns that 
he can not successfully standardize his produce, 
unless he installs upon his farm the methods of 
fertilization, tillage, protection from insect pest 
and the like, by which standardization is brought 
to its highest perfection. So standardization 
means greater farm efficiency, more scientific 
farming, and the greater uplift of the business. 




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CHAPTER XIII 

THE BY-PKODUCTS OF THE FAEM AND THEIR 
UTILIZATION" IN A BUSINESS WAY 

THE Standard Oil Company did not begin to 
wax rich until it solved the question of turn- 
ing its by-products into those numerous useful 
articles of trade from which it has received un- 
told wealth. In its early history in the production 
of its chief product, coal oil, there was an addi- 
tional or by-product produced that was thought 
to be without value. It was a great waste. 
Human ingenuity set about to conserve this waste 
and discovered the great wealth that lie within 
it, and gasoline, paraffine, in fine, two hundred 
chemical factors, were produced from it and its 
by-products are worth more than the oil itself. 
The company can pour its coal oil into the sewer 
and yet pay large dividends on its stock. Is it any 
wonder that the Standard Oil Company became 
the richest corporation the world has ever known ? 

For years the mills ground the farmer's wheat, 
and dumped the brand, the wheat's by-product, 
into the river, regarding it a useless thing. Now 
it is worth more per pound than the flour, it be- 
ing richer in food value both for man and beast. 

Ever since the cotton has been subjected to 
man's use, until a few years ago, its seeds had been 
regarded of no value other than for planting, and 

185 



186 THE BUSINESS OF FARMING 

there being of them so great a surplus, their dis- 
position became a nuisance. Now there are pro- 
duced from them oil, fertilizer, oottolene and meal 
for cattle, and they have become as valuable as the 
cotton itself. 

There is not a manufacturing plant to-day but 
what directs its greatest energy towards the con- 
servation and utilization of its by-products, for 
herein lies its greatest profits. 

But the by-products of the farm have been ne- 
glected and destroyed through all the ages, and 
thus untold wealth has been utterly wasted upon 
farms. In the destruction of cornstalks, a by- 
product of the farm looked upon generally as a 
farm nuisance, there has been more wealth de- 
stroyed than ever possessed by the Standard Oil 
Company. 

The utilization of the cornstalks for one year in 
siloes would produce succulent food sufficient to 
feed cattle and other stock that would produce a 
profit great enough to almost pay the National 
debt, besides furnishing another by-product, ma- 
nure, that would furnish fertility to the soil suffi- 
cient to produce such increased crop yields that 
would feed the people of our nation. Besides no 
one can estimate the untold wealth that would 
have been conserved to the farmers of America 
had our stock fields been held as sacred ground, 
too sacred to allow a foot of them to be pastured, 
or a single stalk to be burned, so that all the stalks 
upon our corn fields might be incoi'porated with 
the soil by proper plowing under, thus preserving 
the great quantities of nitrogen, phosphorus, po- 
tassium and organic matter they contain. In the 



BY-PEODUCTS OF THE FARM 187 

seemingly harmless and much advocated thing of 
pasturing stalks, the greatest injury has been 
done to the farms of the corn belt, an injury in 
dollars and cents, beyond the power of computa- 
tion. The farmer in his mad desire to obtain a 
little feed (and we say little advisedly) for his 
stock with the least labor, has turned them upon 
his stalk fields in those seasons of the year when 
the ground is wet, muddy, freezing and thawing, 
and when the soil should be covered if we wish to 
preserve its fertility. The tramping of his stock 
upon his soil has crushed out its life blood, its 
fertility. And then to further intensify the in- 
famy heaped upon the soil, every remaining stalk 
not eaten or destroyed by the cattle, has been 
raked up and burned with fire. And yet we hear 
promulgated from the highest recognized author- 
ity, even by some of our best agricultural journals, 
that since the farmer has his fields fenced, there is 
no reason why his animals should not gather their 
own food from the stalk fields, and that not to pas- 
ture them is to let them go to waste. And such 
has been the practice in the corn belt for years. 
And the corn belt farms are fast losing their fer- 
tility, and the bulk of their best by-products are 
utilized in such a manner as not only leads to their 
waste, but to the destruction of our farms' best re- 
source, the fertility of the soil. 

Now, we are combating a system which has been 
practiced for generations, that has become a fixed 
habit with the corn belt farmers, and it will re- 
quire hard licks and knock-down arguments to dis- 
enthrone it from the mind of the farmer set in 
Ms old ways. 



188 THE BUSINESS OF FARMING 

In the first place it is universally acknowledged 
that our soils are fast losing their fertility, and 
why? Because we have simply farmed from the 
soil the supplies of organic matter needed to give 
it the proper ventilation, looseness, moisture- 
holding capacity, and to make it a favorable home 
for soil bacteria, and to contain sufficient supplies 
of plant food. Our soils are becoming hard and 
compact. They run together easily and become 
like sun-baked bricks. 

Now, with the soils of our com fields in this con- 
dition, a man with any sense of observation can 
readily see what will happen to such fields if 
cattle are turned in upon them in the fall, winter 
or spring of the year, to tramp and to puddle 
their soils. It will not do to say that if the ground 
is frozen their tramping will not injure the soil, 
for, as a rule, the ground is not frozen at all times 
and nine-tenths of the farmers are utterly oblivi- 
ous of soil conditions of their fields when pasturing 
their stalk fields. Yet we hear it said, ' ' Take the 
chances and eat up the stalks, the damage will not 
equal the loss of feed if you allow the stalks to go 
unpastured.'* 

But let us reason together and ask ourselves the 
question, "If we are to build up our soils to that 
state where they will give adequate return for 
their cultivation, what is the business way of hand- 
ling our by-product, the cornstalk?" 

The cornstalk has great feeding value, and yet 
little of it can be eaten by stock when fed as crude 
fodder. There is but one way in which the entire 
cornstalk can be treated and prepared into palat- 
able food, and that is to silo it. In future ages it 



BY-PEODUCTS OF THE FAEM 189 

will be said that the restoration of the fertility of 
our soils began when the silo was invented, for the 
silo upon the farm changes our methods of feed- 
ing stock. It takes them from our stock fields 
and puts them into the feed lot where their ma- 
nure may be conserved and applied to the soil in 
the most effective manner. 

The well organized manufacturing plant will 
employ every means within its power to utilize its 
entire by-jDroduct. To utilize but a portion of it 
would be regarded poor business policy. But a 
farmer will erect one silo which will not utilize 
one-tenth part of his corn crop, then he will gather 
the balance of his corn and waste the cornstalks 
upon which it grew. 

Of course the author is aware that it would not 
be practicable or even possible in every case to 
silo the entire com crop on our farms, but a 
greater amount siloed means more stock upon our 
farms and a greater fertility for our farms, and 
the greater fertility means a larger crop yield, 
and a larger crop yield means more money for the 
farmer and more food for our people. If, then, 
it is impractical to silo the entire corn crop, and 
thus in the best possible manner conserve the by- 
product, the cornstalk, what method are we to pur- 
sue so that the cornstalks of that portion of our 
stalks not siloed, may be conserved? Some of it 
may be needed in the form of crude fodder to fur- 
nish the needed roughage required in properly 
feeding stock when using silage. But there is 
but one way of utilizing that portion of the corn- 
stalks left in the fields after their harvests of corn 
have been garnered, and that is to take the roller 



190 THE BUSINESS OF FARMING 

inimediately after gathering the corn, roll them 
down flat to the ground, then drive out of the gate 
in the fence surrounding them, lock the gate se- 
curely with padlock, lose the key and forget where 
you placed the hammer or ax until time for spring 
plowing. 

If in this method of treatment you but add the 
proper cover crop planted or sown among these 
cornstalks at the proper season of the year, then 
you will indeed be upon the right road leading to 
soil conservation. 

Of course the covetous and greedy farmer, with- 
out capacity for looking ahead or solving the prob- 
lem of the soil's fertility will look over the fence 
and say in his heart, '*0h, what a waste of feed." 
And in tlie spring time, the farmer set in the ways 
of farming of his ancesters will be impatient to 
tear down the gate and get into the field that he 
may rake up and destroy with fire that precious 
wealth of organic matter and fertility contained 
in those stalks. But that farmer who farms with 
his brains, as well as with his hands, seeing the 
soil's need and its requirements, will find the lost 
key, unlock the gate at a time when the soil is in 
the right condition for plowing, and with sufficient 
power hitched to a properly equipped plow, will 
drive into the field, and in a scientific and busi- 
nesslike manner proceed to plow under a sufficient 
depth those cornstalks and cover crop, which have 
been covering the soil during the winter months 
conserving soil fertility, thus incorporating them 
with the soil so that the soil bacteria will be able 
to attack them and work them up into plant food, 
and into those other elements that contribute to 



BY-PEODUCTS OF THE FARM 191 

the soil's fertility. So this farmer will thus be 
feeding the land as he feeds his cattle, and the 
soil will be as responsive to its good treatment 
as his cattle are responsive to their good treat- 
ment, and they each will wax fat and ponr their 
wealth into the hands of this farmer. 

For years the author has denounced the insane 
method of pasturing and burning cornstalks. He 
calls these methods of utilizing this by-product of 
the farm insane because they lead to such a crim- 
inal waste of soil fertility, for which our soils 
are pleading as shown by their waning crop 
growth and productiveness. And this is not 
theory with the author. He has for years prac- 
ticed the method of not pasturing the stalks and 
plowing them under upon lands adjoining the 
same character of lands where the system of pas- 
turing and burning was practiced, and the results 
in favor of the author's method have been so 
marked that it has led him to denounce the old 
method of pasturing and burning, which he will 
continue to do with all his might and power. 

There may be other methods of conserving this 
by-product that have merit, as for instance, a pro- 
cess has been discovered by which paper can be 
made from cornstalks. The stalks are beaten and 
fanned to remove the dirt from them. They are 
then cut into pieces and steeped in water and 
shredded into fiber in a special machine. This 
shredded material is then boiled in diluted acetic 
acid under air pressure which results in a product 
of which one per cent, to eighteen per cent, is an 
alkaline solution and yields large quantities of ex- 
cellent paper fiber, leaving a residue which may be 



192 THE BUSINESS OF FARMING 

utilized as food for stock or from whicli a fair 
quantity of cane sugar can be procured. 

Now, the author can see no objection to the 
utilization of the cornstalk into paper making, 
provided our soils are supplied with organic mat- 
ter from some source other than the cornstalks. 
Otherwise the cornstalk should never be destroyed 
by fire or taken from the farm. We must not get 
away from the living truth that our soils' sorest 
need is organic matter. Certain death and decay 
is written upon their ever}'' fiber if organic matter 
in abundance is not each year restored to them. 
But in the removal of the cornstalk from the 
farm we are not wholly without a substitute from 
which vast quantities of organic matter can be 
quickly obtained. If, when we lay by our corn 
fields we would sow them to rye or vetch, we would 
not only give these soils the finest cover crop, but 
would give to them before plowing time the fol- 
lowing spring more organic matter than the corn- 
stalks would afford. But do not forget that these 
cornstalks removed from the farm, remove a 
large quantity of the mineral elements they ex- 
tract from the soil in their growth, which will be 
forever lost to the soil, and mineral elements that 
soil must have to make it fertile. 

The utilization of cornstalks by shredding is to 
be commended although this method does not fur- 
nish one-half the feed that is furnished by the silo, 
yet it prevents the waste of the cornstalks, be- 
cause those portions of the shredded stalks not 
eaten, and which can not be eaten by stock, may be 
utilized in bedding for stock, and is thus con- 
served into manure. And as these shredded 



BY-PEODUCTS OF THE FAEM 193 

stalks soak up the liquid portions of the manure, 
it saves the most valuable part of the manure 
which is generally wasted. This method of hand- 
ling the cornstalks not only results in a saving of 
24 per cent, of the fodder, when handled by the old 
methods, but is also labor saving, as the shredder 
husks the ears of corn. Fodder can be shredded 
at an average cost of $2.25 per acre. The part 
that is eaten is as valuable as timothy hay. It 
affords the proper and necessary roughage for 
stock, and if shredded in the right condition, pre- 
serves fodder in a better and more economical 
manner than when handled in the old way. This 
system, next to putting the corn into the silo, 
should be commended in the highest terms, be- 
cause like siloing, the entire cornstalk is conserved 
to the farmer's great profit, especially in view of 
the fact that so much of it gets back to the soil to 
supply it with the precious organic matter. 

It is universally conceded that the salvation 
of our worn and worn-out soils is the application 
to them of stores of organic matter ; that the two 
best sources from which organic matter can be ob- 
tained is manure and green manuring crops ; that 
the most valuable is manure; that sufficient sup- 
plies of manure cannot be obtained under the pres- 
ent system of management of our farms, because 
they do not feed sufficient stock. It is also con- 
ceded that the feeding of stock upon our farms, 
aside from the manure they furnish, is a most 
profitable business; that by feeding stock the 
grain, grasses and other feed materials grown 
upon the farm, we obtain the maximum prices for 
our farm products grown for stock feeding. The 



194 THE BUSINESS OF FAEMING 

combination, then, that produces stock whose in- 
crease in fat brings the farmer a rich profit, and 
the feeding of which gives him a maximum price 
for the farm products he feeds them, combined 
with a system of conserving into a rich and palat- 
able food the by-product of the farm, the corn- 
stalk, ought to spur the farmer to such effort that 
he will not simply be content to conserve a part 
of this by-product, but will so equip his farm that 
every part and portion of this by-product will be 
conserved into that profit making food, that not 
only causes his cattle to wax fat and grow into 
riches, but which also results in the production of 
another by-product, the most valuable to the farm, 
which, if it can be produced to the farm in large 
quantities, would almost solve the question of 
maintaining soil fertility. 

The modern manufacturing plant that would not 
conserve and utilize each and every portion of a 
valuable by-product, would be looked upon as be- 
ing a plant twenty years behind the times. And 
what is the farm but a modern manufacturing 
plant that manufactures human and animal food 
stuffs? And why should it not conserve and util- 
ize every portion of its by-products as well as the 
most modern conducted business establishment? 

In the hauling of corn to market the farmer of 
course receives pay for corn cobs, receiving the 
same price per pound for them as he does for his 
corn. But it occurs to the author that here is a 
by-product that can be utilized in another and to 
a greater profit for the farmer. Every farmer in 
this day is or should be equipped with a gasoline 
engine. Corn shellers are cheap and can be oper- 



BY-PEODUCTS OF THE FARM 195 

ated with the average gasoline engine. Shelled 
corn well cleaned should command a price equal 
to the corn sold on the cob, and would in this 
manner afford the farmer the same profit and 
leave him the cobs, costing the labor and expense 
of shelling which would not be large. Most all 
farms have their feed mills, or they can be pur- 
chased at a cheap price, which too are operated by 
gasoline power. These mills will grind up cobs 
into a fine matter that can be utilized for feed, 
bedding or manure, or, as has recently been dis- 
covered, can be with little trouble and skill mixed 
with cement and molded into the best of lumber. 
But if the cobs were ground and returned to the 
soil, the farmer would receive five times the value 
by such utilization than he receives from the pur- 
chase and use of commercial fertilizers, and he 
would save to his soils the valuable soil minerals 
contained in them. No manufacturing plants 
would despise such a ultilization of its by-pro- 
ducts. It would ever be on the alert to find them. 

Much care should be exercised in the utilization 
of straw upon the farm, and it should never be 
sold from any farm unless animal or green manur- 
ing crops are substituted in its place. Its main 
uses are for bedding and roughage for stock, and 
is thus converted, not only into animal profit mak- 
ing fat, but into another by-product, manure. 
Utilized thus, greater profit is secured than in its 
sale. 

The successful orchardman is ever on the alert 
to work up into profit his by-products of unsalable 
fruit. They are used into cider, vinegar, feed, etc. 

China, Germany, and many other old countries 



196 THE BUSINESS OF FAEMING 

have been driven by necessity to utilize every by- 
product of the soil or farm. They construct their 
compost heaps into which are thrown every weed, 
straw, vine, top of vegetable, shuck or manure. 
Not a single bit of organic matter, no matter what 
its kind or character, is wasted, but is carefully 
garnered and thrown into the compost heap to be 
converted into manure or fertilizing matter with 
which to compensate the soil for its production of 
crops. 

The majority of farmers in America have not as 
yet been driven to that necessity, but the author 
ventures the prophecy that unless our soil wasting 
be stayed, that very thing, and at no distant 
day, will become an important part of our farm 
economy. 

The successful Koman farmer even plowed un- 
der his stubble as soon as the crops were removed 
that it might not dry out and take the moisture 
from the soil, and lose much of its fertilizing 
value. It is the practice of the American farmer 
to let the stubble become dry and then burn it. 

Many of us have not even begun the study of the 
best methods of utilizing or conserving the 
by-products of the farm, and too few of us are 
putting them into practice, even when we have 
learned them. 

The successful farmer of the future is the one 
who will carefully study out and put into execu- 
tion methods by which every by-product of the 
farm will be consumed and utilized to the best ad- 
vantage. 

When this has become the common practice upon 



BY-PEODUCTS OF THE FARM 197 

every portion of our soil, then our worn and 
worn-out lands will have become a memory and 
the profits of the business of farming will be worth 
while. 



CHAPTER XIV 

CAEE OF FARM MACHINERY 

WE are living in the most advanced age of 
machinery. Never before in the history 
of the world has machinery been applied to the 
doing of man's work as now. Man has made per- 
fected machines that do his work with greater 
skill than ever he possessed. This perfected 
machinery has permeated every industry, and 
now becomes necessary to the perfection of effi- 
ciency so that products may be produced at lowest 
possible cost. 

Perfected machineiy for all branches of the 
business of farming has been developed to that 
stage that it has solved much of the labor problems 
of the business, and makes farm labor a lighter 
burden than it has ever been in the history of the 
business. The day of brawn upon the farm has 
been succeeded by the day of lessened labor and 
shorter hours of labor. Perfected farm machin- 
ery has been the magic wand that has touched the 
old farm labor conditions, and brought forth the 
period of greater efficiency accomplished by light- 
ened labor under more pleasant and agreeable 
conditions, yet we must still take into considera- 
tion depreciation of farm machinery in figuring 
the cost of producing our farm products. 

The manufacturing plant that does not figure 

198 




Z Q 

O W 



CARE OF FARM MACHINERY 199 

depreciation in all its phases as a part of the cost 
of its finished products will learn to its distress 
that it is playing a losing game. It is therefore 
a business proposition to reduce depreciation to a 
minimum. This can only be done with machinery 
by taking the proper care of it. 

It is often found necessary to replace machinery 
with the new and improved machinery that so in- 
creases efficiency that it makes it no longer eco- 
nomical to use the old. But the machinery that 
has not been displaced with the new and improved 
machinery, as well as the new, should be preserved 
and cared for in the most approved manner. 

In every business we find a great neglect in the 
caring for machinery, but it seems to the author 
that those who are engaged in the business of 
farming show greater neglect of their machinery 
than in any other business. The cause of this 
certainly cannot be attributed to downright lazi- 
ness. There must be another reason for it. We 
are inclined to believe it is due to thoughtlessness 
caused by want of knowledge of the importance of 
proper caring for machinery, or for lack of capital 
to provide ways and means for caring for machin- 
ery. We firmly believe that if every one engaged 
in the business of farming had the necessary 
capital to construct the proper sheds or buildings 
in which to care for his farm machinery, we 
would not now see conditions that obtain upon 
most all our farms in respect to the care of ma- 
chinery. 

No farm is really and truly equipped for busi- 
ness unless it not only has sufficient sheds and 
buildings in which to house its machinery, but also 



200 THE BUSINESS OF FARMING 

has its worksliop with heating facilities so that in 
the winter season repairs can be made to ma- 
chinery. 

But few of us properly care for our plows and 
cultivators. When through with them for the day 
or season, instead of applying to the moldboard 
points and shovels, oil or grease in the form of 
paste, we allow them to be exposed to weather 
conditions which bring on the rust that prevents 
scouring, and causes the irritating annoyances 
and improper plowing or cultivation. And often 
when we put away our machinery in our ample 
sheds we forget that' dampness and rust will per- 
meate into those sheds the same as though ex- 
posed to weather conditions, and so forget the 
application of grease and paint that will protect 
and preserve from these troubles. 

There is joy and pleasure in working with the 
good piece of farm machinery in our fields if it 
be in perfect condition in all its parts, for in this 
condition it does its work well. Much of the neg- 
lect to care for farm machines is occasioned by the 
same force that causes neglect of farm fences, 
buildings, farm surroundings generally, neglect of 
soil, etc. It is the spirit of neglect that fastens 
itself upon the lives of men in every branch of 
trade or business. This spirit is chiefly brought 
about by discouragements, discontent with our lot, 
dreaming for things beyond our stations, lack of 
ability, and often to laziness. 

We have already shown the force of discourage- 
ment upon the lives and habits of men. If we 
could but get in tune with our business and be 
given the vision of its wonderful possibilities, 



CAEE OF FARM MACHINERY 201 

every farm neglect would be soon eliminated. 
Read again our chapter on the Discouragements 
and Vicissitudes of the Business of Farming, and 
especially our chapter upon the Profits of the 
Business of Farming, and see if you cannot get 
the spirit and vision of that work that gets you 
interested in every detail of your business, for if 
you can catch the true spirit of work and make it 
a part of your being, then you will cheerfully go 
forth and strive to eliminate from your business 
the spirit of neglect that is swallowing up your 
profits in waste, and which also is spreading the 
spirit of discontent of farm life among your fam- 
ilies. 

The most successful men in the business world 
have been the men who were ever alert and so 
interested in their business that they attended 
carefully to its every detail, and in the doing of 
this they found that waste was the most serious 
foe to their business, and that its elimination 
meant increased profits, and when they saw this 
they did not procrastinate but acted. 

We must eliminate the waste of neglect from 
our farms, not only for profit, but for the uplift 
of our families, and to increase our love for our 
business. If it requires capital to do it, let us 
put forth every effort to secure it for the returns 
will soon pay the borrowed capital. If energy 
and work only is the requisite needed, then let us 
quit our dreaming and get busy. Get in the game 
of your business and play it like the true sport or 
quit the business. Too many of us are simply 
drifting, and the drifting man always neglects his 
business and fails to safeguard it by the elimina- 



202 THE BUSINESS OF FARMING 

tion of waste. If by the proper care of farm ma- 
chinery we can double its period of activity, we 
have added much to our profits. Under the con- 
ditions that now obtain upon the average farm 
with reference to the care of farm machinery its 
life is reduced nearly one-half for want of proper 
care. It is one of the great wastes of the business 
that eats heavily into the profits, and yet is a 
waste that can so easily be eliminated. It re- 
quires no set rules to eliminate this waste from 
the farm. Just simply get busy and do it like 
John Sherman told how to resume specie pay- 
ments, *' Just resume." 




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CHAPTER XV 

THE IMPOETANCE OF LIVE STOCK IN THE BUSINESS 
OF FARMING 

WE hear much about feeding more stock on 
the farm. That there is much profit in 
so doing is an established fact. More money is 
secured for the grain and forage fed than if it 
was hauled to market, and the by-product, manure, 
produced by this method is valuable, as it enables 
the farmer to maintain and increase the fertility 
of much of his farm. But those who so enthu- 
siastically advocate this method of farm pro- 
cedure, forget the fact that to do this on most 
any farm, requires considerable capital, which 
many farmers, especially renters, cannot secure. 

Again, not every farm is adapted to this pur- 
pose, for to successfully follow the procedure, the 
farm must have an abundance of water furnished 
either by springs, running streams, or pumped 
from wells. To pump water from wells means a 
considerable expense. There must also be plenty 
of shade, pasture or forage crops in abundance 
every month of the spring, summer, and fall sea- 
sons, and plenty of feed and shelter in the winter 
season. And the farmer who follows this method 
must also have such a love for stock that he will 
give it the best care, which means that he must 
be possessed of patience, a love for details and a 

203 



204 THE BUSINESS OF FARMING 

disposition to give almost his whole time to their 
attention and care, for they cannot be kept in 
health and brought to a good marketable stage 
without it. He must also be possessed of that 
kindly disposition which enables one to treat stock 
with kindness and gentleness, for animals resent 
harsh treatment as much as man. When we con- 
sider the fact that upon the farms of the United 
States there are twenty-five millions of horses and 
mules, the cost of feeding which, annually, is about 
two billions of dollars, and that it takes one-third 
of the hay and corn grown on the average farm 
to feed the horses or mules required to cultivate 
and care for the farm, it can be seen at a glance 
that to keep much of the stock upon the farm in 
addition to horses and mules necessary to run it, 
means that the farm must grow more grain and 
forage than is now produced upon the average 
farm. 

Few farms have a large acreage of blue grass 
pasture, and even if they had, it could not be de- 
pended upon in the dry seasons. 

It is probably designed by Nature that we should 
not all be stock farmers, for if we were, from 
whence would come the grain to feed the world, 
and the hay and other feed stuffs which feed the 
animals of those who do not farm? 

Somebody must be grain farmers, that is, 
farmers who grow and sell all the products of 
the farm, only reserving enough to feed the stock 
required to carry on their farm operations and to 
furnish food for themselves. As nearly three- 
fourths of the farmers of the United States are 
grain fanners, and probably always will be, for 



IMPORTANCE OF LIVE STOCK 205 

grain farming has generally been profitable and 
will be if farm fertility is kept up, and as many 
do not have and cannot secure the capital requi- 
site, and do not have the capacity for raising and 
caring for stock, the business of grain farming 
will continue to occupy the attention of the vast 
majority of our farmers. 

Most any farm can be fitted and so managed 
that much stock can be fed to a profit, even though 
it have none of the natural advantages for so 
doing. 

First, we must get away from the idea that a 
large acreage of pasture lands is necessary. The 
most successful stock feeders of our own and 
foreign countries get best results from lot feed- 
ing, and this method does not require large pas- 
ture acreage. The essential thing is shelter from 
inclement weather and excessive sunlight, and it 
does not always mean expensive buildings to se- 
cure these protections. A simple shed of poles, 
rails, and straw, will make shelters that protect 
from cold, sleet, rain, or fierce summer heat, 
and make comfortable places for stock even in 
the winter seasons. If commodious, sanitary 
equipped buildings can be erected, so much the 
better, but the worst failures in stock raising the 
author has ever seen were those of farmers who 
had the most expensive and best equipped building 
facihties for the caring of stock. Simply con- 
structed sheds of poles, rails and straw, erected 
where drainage is perfect, will give as good re- 
sults in the care of stock as the most expensive 
and elaborate stock barns, and like every other 
business the success of producing live stock de- 



206 THE BUSINESS OF FARMING 

pends upon tlie man behind the business. The 
main things are the right breeds of stock, the feed, 
the feeding, the sanitation and the care bestowed, 
and the production of these essentials depends 
upon the man. 

The most important thing is the production of 
an abundance of the right kind of food. The food 
generally relied upon on the average farm is corn, 
timothy and clover hay, and a forage of blue grass 
and clover. To depend upon these in this day and 
generation would mean that upon the average 
farm there would be little stock produced at a 
profit, so we must get away from this idea of 
producing feeds for stock. 

The trouble with most farmers is that they are 
impregnated with the idea that blue grass, tim- 
othy, clover and matured corn are the only feeds. 
The folly of depending upon these feeds for ex- 
tensive stock raising upon the average farm is 
apparent if we but lay aside our prejudices and 
study carefully the situation. 

Blue grass is fine for the season it lasts, but 
it is susceptible to drouth, does not grow in abun- 
dance except upon our best cultivated lands. Oc- 
casionally we find waste woodland or lands not 
susceptible of cultivation that produce fairly good 
pasture of blue grass, but such conditions are 
rarely found. If lands are at all susceptible of 
cultivation, other forage crops can be grown upon 
them more abundantly and at greater profit. 

Timothy produces but one crop a season, and 
generally not in abundance unless the land upon 
which it is grown is extra fertile. On average 
lands its output is less than a ton to the acre, 




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IMPOBTANCE OF LIVE STOCK 207 

which, for its feeding value, is a most unprofitable 
crop, and especially in view of the fact that it is a 
crop that has done and is doing more to produce 
worn and worn-out lands than any crop ever grown 
upon the farm. Clover ranks well, but there are 
better and more profitable forage crops. A fine 
forage crop for cattle, sheep, or horses is hunga- 
rian. It produces its large crops of high feeding 
qualities in eight weeks, and can be sown upon 
wheat lands after wheat harvest, and after its 
harvest the soil can be sown to rye or other green 
manuring and cover crops, which can be pastured 
in the fall or left to cover the ground and to be 
plowed under in the spring, thus procuring sev- 
eral crops the same season and yet providing for 
an excellent method of farm procedure by which 
soil fertility can be maintained. 

Sorghum is another most valuable forage crop 
of rich feeding value which can be quickly grown, 
producing tons of forage to the acre, and will so 
grow on most any soil, and will as soon as cut 
immediately grow a second crop which can be 
used for forage, or, a better plan is to use it as 
a green manuring crop for plowing under, for 
sorghum is valuable for this purpose. 

Kafir, a forage plant of the species of sorghum, 
and like unto corn, is most valuable as it flourishes 
at its best in the semi-arid or dry regions. Na- 
ture has endowed this plant with a virtue worth 
millions to the business of farming. That virtue 
is the plant's ability to cease growth and lie dor- 
mant without injury during periods of drouth 
and to resume its growth when rains come to re- 
fresh it. It also has the power to produce the 



208 THE BUSINESS OF FAEMING 

second and even third crop. Its feeding power 
while not as high as that of com, is most valuable, 
and as feed it is suitable for all kinds of stock, 
and in some parts of the world is used for human 
food. 

Cow peas, friend of worn-out soils, which takes 
so kindly to its soil feeding powers that it will 
grow it in abundance, is a forage plant of such 
high feeding powers, and produces in such quan- 
tity, that it should be grown upon every farm that 
feeds stock in any quantity, even by the grain 
farmer for the stock that he needs in his farm 
operations. 

There are other forage plants worthy of trial 
which have proved their value for feeding stock, 
like rape for hogs, and the millets and vetches for 
cattle. 

But in making a selection of forage plants the 
farmer must, to be successful, consider those 
plants which give the greatest feeding value and 
the plants that will produce the largest quantity 
of forage at the least expense, both for growing 
and harvesting. 

Corn is a staple and perhaps a necessity in 
stock raising and always will be, although it can 
not be depended upon alone, but it is one of the 
most valuable of feeds for stock if siloed. 

There is another forage plant whose value has 
not yet been fully appreciated and realized by the 
stock raisers of our country, and that is alfalfa, 
*'the everlasting and best fodder," transformer 
of Kansas farmers into Nabobs, the mint that 
coins pork into dollars, possessing the alchemic 
art of transmuting worn-out soil into ''pay dirt," 



IMPORTANCE OF LIVE STOCK 209 

and one of the two plants that is worth more to 
our agricultural economy than any grain, grass or 
forage plant grown upon the American farm. 
Valuable because it can be made to grow luxuri- 
antly upon nine-tenths of our soils, producing in 
almost any portion of our country three bumper 
crops of hay, and in many places four or five crops 
each season, and for a long period of years, its 
feeding value equal, pound for pound, to bran 
(the richest in food value of any stock food 
known), and not equaled by any forage plant 
known to agriculture. Besides it is a plant that 
has concealed in its juices the health giving elixir 
for the animal that eats it. 

Alfalfa pastured by, or fed as hay to hogs, to- 
gether with a ration of corn, constitutes the cheap- 
est and most perfectly balanced ration, and the 
ideal winter ration for brood sows. 

It possesses another characteristic that seems 
to have been overlooked by alfalfa writers, and 
that is the easy and cheap manner in which it can 
be prepared and made ready for feeding. No 
necessity to resort to the expense and labor of 
putting it in silos, or chopping it up and mixing 
with other feeds. If the alfalfa field is well es- 
tablished turn the stock into it in the summer 
time and pasture it judiciously, which means not 
to over pasture, and clip with mower the same as 
if cut for hay. The hay can be at any season of 
the year thrown into the manger and feeding racks 
to horses, cattle, sheep, hogs, and it will be eaten 
with relish, and to the great profit of the farmer. 

Within the lifetime of the author, and in the 
region where he has resided, there sprang up in 



210 THE BUSINESS OF FAEMING 

great profusion along the roadsides and upon the 
waste unproductive soils, a plant immediately de- 
nounced by the people generally as a most serious 
weed pest. There was mystery in its origin, for 
no one knew from whence it came. In alarm the 
farmer said it would invade and devastate his 
cultivated fields, yet it never did take hold upon 
the rich or fairly rich cultivated or uncultivated 
lands, but upon the poorest, stoniest, and driest 
waste places, road sides and commons, it flourished 
and grew to great size, no matter what the char- 
acter of the growing season might be. 

This seeming weed pest was but one of the pow- 
erful soil restoring working forces that Nature 
so kindly sets before the owners of worn and 
worn-out soil for restoring soil fertility. It was 
one of her mute offers of help to our burdened 
soils, and though soil owners spumed the prof- 
fered help, Nature was persistent. When the 
soil owner would with fury strike down the seem- 
ing pest with mower and scythe. Nature made it 
grow more luxuriantly than ever before, and fur- 
ther emphasized one of its valuable characteristics. 
The persistence of Nature in making the plant 
flourish under the sternest opposition and environ- 
ment, no doubt led some one out in thought and 
investigation, for somebody saw the virtues and 
uses of the plant, and it was discovered that Na- 
ture was bringing to the very feet of the farmer, 
a plant whose soil restoring and fertility main- 
taining powers and feeding value is not equaled 
by any plant grown, or human agency devised by 
man. Thus the despised and rejected sweet clover 
plant is not only about to become a comer stone 






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IMPOETANCE OF LIVE STOCK 211 

of a permanent agriculture in this land of ours, 
but a most valuable forage plant. Valuable as a 
forage plant because it will make an enormous 
growth and harvest upon our poorest lands, thus 
making stock farming profitable where before it 
was a positive failure, because not enough feed 
could be produced to profitably feed stock. 

To those who are ever proclaiming that to build 
up our worn and worn-out soils, or to maintain 
soil fertility, the farmers of our country must be- 
come live stock farmers and grow and produce 
more live stock upon the farm, the author would 
remind, that the manure from the stock raised 
upon the farms of the United States would not 
cover one-tenth of our farm lands. What is to 
become of the other nine-tenths? If all the farms 
would go into the live stock business to any great 
extent, from whence would they get their supplies 
of stock with which to commence business? And 
we have shown that manure is not needed to build 
up our soils or to maintain their fertility. 

Again we should remember as one has well said, 
*'We do not live by meat alone." Bread is the 
basis of the food of the world, and it takes the 
grains to make bread, and the remaining items 
of diet almost as important as meat are the vege- 
tables and the fruit, all produced upon the farms. 

Our dispositions and tastes are such that not all 
of us would succeed as producers of meat, grain, 
vegetables, and f ruif collectively. Some of us de- 
light in live stock raising, and so make a success 
of this business. Some of us are more successful 
in the other single lines of the business of farm- 
ing, and so writers and speakers in considering 



212 THE BUSINESS OF FARMING 

these things should not forget the true conditions 
that obtain, and always will obtain in the agricul- 
tural world, and, therefore, not advocate the doing 
of impossible things. 

We find conditions obtaining upon the farm that 
can not be changed, but they can be improved to 
the advantage of the great business of farming, 
and therefore to the advantage of the people in 
general. For instance, if conditions are such that 
live stock farming can not be engaged in by every 
farmer, then the condition that necessarily follows 
the lot of those who engage in grain farming, who 
do not secure enough manure to keep up and main- 
tain the fertility of the farm, can be so changed 
that they can follow a system of green manuring 
by which bumper crops can be grown, and farm 
fertility can not only be increased but maintained. 

The alarm has been sounded that a serious 
shortage of the meat supply threatens our nation. 
The breaking up of the western ranges has had 
much to do with this shortage, and if it be true as 
some claim, that ''rich red juicy beef" is neces- 
sary to put the virile force into the American 
people, then this apparent meat shortage indeed 
becomes a serious menace to our people, and re- 
quires that something be done to remedy the con- 
dition of meat shortage. 

Many and varied are the remedies suggested. 
Among them being that "every farmer should 
raise at least two beef steers a year to offset the 
decreased production of the ranges." *'The re- 
maining ranges should be cut up into farms." 
"Development of the hills of New England, with 
their bountiful springs and prevailing shade." 



IMPORTANCE OF LIVE STOCK 213 

"Substitution of corn for cotton in the southern 
states, and the consequent development of cattle 
and hog production." 

Of course it is up to the farmer to produce more 
meat, but he wiU never do it unless he can be 
shown that there is money in the proposition. 
The way the average farm has been managed as 
to the production of feeds has led away from, 
rather than to, stock upon our farms, for the pro- 
duction of crops upon these farms has been such 
that it was necessary that the average farmer 
should sell all his grain and feed stuff grown, other 
than what was necessary to feed his stock neces- 
sary to conduct farm operations, in order that he 
might live. The average farmer did not have a 
large acreage of native grasses, and if he did, they 
would not be available at all seasons on account 
of drouth, and those grown, like alfalfa, that pro- 
duced their several crops each season, or those 
other grasses that produced enormous crops, were 
not grown. Dependence was put upon timothy 
and clover, which never, except under the most 
favorable conditions of weather and soil fertility, 
produced in abundance. The silo was unknown 
and so the average farm as a meat producer has 
been of little consequence, and to make it a pro- 
ducer now, an entire change in the methods of 
farming must be put into effect upon these farms. 

The question of a better meat supply will never 
be solved upon the average farm so long as the 
average farm will not grow more than enough 
clover, timothy, or grass to support one steer to 
the acre. But it will be solved when the owner 
of our average farms begins to grow such forage 



214 THE BUSINESS OF FARMING 

plants as alfalfa, sweet clover, sorghum, soy beans, 
cow peas, kafir, and erect the silo for the better 
utilization of corn and cornstalks, a by-product 
heretofore wasted and destroyed. For when these 
methods of farm procedure obtain upon our 
farms, then the production of live stock becomes 
a most profitable business, and farmers will en- 
gage in it because there is money in the business 
of stock raising under such conditions. When 
farm prejudices are broken down and the farmer 
can be made to see that by a certain line of pro- 
cedure money can be made out of stock raising, 
then he will engage in it to the extent of his capital, 
and here we must realize that while it is an estab- 
lished fact that the successful farming operations 
have for their comer-stone a large number of ani- 
mals used for human food, yet to do even this re- 
quires capital to buy or raise the animals, to secure 
and maintain proper equipment for their care, and 
the securing of their feed in the most economical 
manner. And to find so large a number of farms 
without their proper quota of live stock, is be- 
cause their owners lack sufficient capital and are 
not in position to secure the same, and their farms 
are not so farmed that feed for stock is produced 
in sufficient amount to feed any quantity of stock, 
for we must remember that it takes twelve pounds 
of feed to produce a pound of beef, and four 
pounds of feed to produce one pound of pork. 

Statistics show that in the mercantile world a 
large, if not the largest number, of failures are the 
result of insufficient capital, and the author be- 
lieves that if statis-tics could be gathered as to the 
causes of failures in farm operations, it would 



IMPOETANCE OF LIVE STOCK 215 

prove that lack of capital had the greatest number 
to its credit. 

If, then, the average farmer has ''been shown," 
and he can secure the capital to buy stock, and 
will change his methods of producing feeds, he will 
become an important factor in relieving the meat 
shortage that threatens our country. 



CHAPTER XVI 

REAL COST OF OPERATION, SHIPPING AND MARKET- 
ING PRODUCTS 

THE market values of farm products are, un- 
fortunately for the farmer, fixed in the mar- 
kets of the world. The farmer has little, if any- 
thing, to say about what price his farm products 
shall bring. Generally the manufacturer can, and 
does, fix the market price of his manufactured 
goods. 

The market values of farm products are regu- 
lated generally by supply and demand. When 
there is a plethora of farm products, or any one 
of them, no amount of organization or cooperation 
among farmers will boost prices. It may help 
increase the price for select products, or correct 
certain market conditions, and in a limited way 
increase consumption, but a bountiful supply of 
farm products always has and always will bear 
down and reduce prices. 

Then, if the farmer is unable to fix the price of 
his farai products, he must, to make a profit, see 
that his operating expenses are reduced to the 
minimum. 

The manufacturer, in figuring cost of operation, 
figures not only cost of raw material and labor in 
working up same, but he also takes into considera- 
tion the items of interes.t, taxes, water rents, lights, 

216 




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EEAL COST OF OPEEATION 217 

depreciation, etc. So the farmer should, if he 
would figure the true cost of operation. True this 
will not avail him much if he cannot fix the price 
of his products, but it will show him the real cost 
of production, and may enable him to lop off the 
unnecessary expenses, or the expense he might 
get along without, or, at least, enable him to plan 
to eliminate some of the expenses of production. 

The real cost of farm operations is taxes, in- 
surance, interest, rental value of land, repairs to 
buildings, fences and machinery, depreciation of 
buildings, fences, horses, mules, machinery, ani- 
mals kept for breeding purposes and for furnish- 
ing food for his family, grain or other products 
used for food, amount expended for fertilizers and 
for seeds planted to produce crops for green ma- 
nuring, expeditures for seeds and plants, plowing, 
cultivating, and harvesting and hauling products 
to market. 

In estimating cost of marketing products, the 
actual time expended in the process of hauling 
products to the market place should be estimated 
as well as the time consumed in shipping to market 
and its incident expense, if the farmer or his help 
accompanies the products to the final market place, 
and the return to the farm home. From this it 
will be seen that there are a great many items of 
cost to be considered in making up the real items of 
cost of farm operations, shipping and marketing 
of farm products. So if the farmer has no voice 
in fixing the market price of his products he can 
reduce costs. But how? 

1st. In the matter of repairs to buildings, ma- 
chinery, fences, etc., a few dollars spent at the 



218 THE BUSINESS OF FAEMING 

right time upon buildings in the way of paint, and 
general upkeep may, and does, save many dollars. 
As instance in the painting of buildings. If the 
farmer would paint his buildings white and apply 
at intervals of a few years apart of but a single 
coat of paint, his buildings would not only present 
a neat appearance, but would be preserved in- 
definitely. The neglect to nail on the loose board, 
or the broken doar hinge, or the replacing of a 
rotten feme post, or the closing of barn doors 
and farm gates, results in the loss of many dollars, 
which could have been saved with a little foresight 
and action. The failure to keep machinery in 
proper repair is a source of great expense which 
adds much to the cost of operation. 

2d. The use of poor materials in the construc- 
tion of buildings, fences, etc., and the purchase and 
use of poor seeds result in the loss of many dol- 
lars. It never pays to buy the ''shoddy" in any- 
thing. The best is none too good. The purchase 
of materials for constructing anji;hing upon the 
farm should be made with the end in view of sub- 
stituting lasting material for that which soon de- 
cays, as substituting cement for wood whenever 
possible. 

3d. The eliminating of the farm fence and re- 
ducing its use to the minimum, would not only 
greatly reduce the cost of fami operations, but 
add untold wealth to the farms of our coun- 
try by the bringing into cultivation of lands occu- 
pied with fences, and preserving and increasing 
the fertility of vast tracts of our farm lands which 
are tramped to their death by the stock turned 
upon them to gather a little food, resulting in 



REAL COST OF OPERATION 219 

more lot feeding witli its accompanying good re- 
sults. 

4tli. The use of the best and most improved 
farm machinery. The best farm tool, whether for 
plowing, cultivating, or marketing and general 
purposes, is the one that will do the work in the 
best manner and in the quickest time, saves horse 
flesh or other motive power. If a farm tractor for 
plowing can be installed upon the farm that will 
do the proper plowing in the proper time and at 
a reduced expense, or a two-row three-horse cul- 
tivator can be put in use that saves the labor of 
one horse, and one man, and yet cultivates the same 
number of acres in a day, and as well as four horses 
and two men will cultivate with two two-horse 
cultivators, it can readily be seen that a farmer 
makes no mistake in installing upon his farm such 
machinery, or any other farm machinery of like na- 
ture, for he not only eliminates cost of operation, 
but helps to solve the labor problem on the farm. 
And the installation of labor saving machinery 
means the conservation of time and human energy, 
which means much to the farmer, his wife and 
family and hired help, which helps, not only to 
eliminate, but to solve many of the problems of 
farm life, like farm labor, reduced hours for 
labor, keeping the boy and girl upon the farm, 
and giving the farmer time for studying his farm 
problems, and for right and better farm living. 

5th. Better machinery for transportation of 
farm products and better roads. The wagon and 
horses have long been and will continue to be the 
farmer's mode of transporting his products to 
market, and if the farmer is much removed from 



220 THE BUSINESS OF FARMING 

market, it constitutes a slow process of transporta- 
tion. Therefore to make this department of busi- 
ness of farming bear its proportion of reduced 
cost of farm operations, it is necessary to have 
the best and most modern make of wagon, which 
has large loading capacity, and to have the quick 
stepping draught horses, capable of pulling the 
heaviest load. But even this would avail nothing 
if the farmer does not have the best improved 
highway leading from his farm to the market, and 
the highway so improved that it is capable of bear- 
ing heavy loads at all seasons of the year. For 
what does even the improved highway profit the 
farmer if he cannot haul the heavy load over it in 
the soft seasons of the year when the unimproved 
roads are impassable and the markets the best? 

In most of our states the system of road build- 
ing is fairly good, but the system of road mainte- 
nance is a shame and disgrace to our civilization, 
and causes the loss of millions of dollars to our 
farmers in the way of hindrance to getting the ad- 
vantage of the best market, wear and tear of 
vehicle, ill spent money for road repairs and in- 
ability to haul loads of full capacity. 

If the farmer living remote, or even close to 
market, has the outfit to haul the maximum load, 
and the highway upon which it can be easily 
hauled, he saves much valuable time and prevents 
much wear and tear of his wagons and horses, 
and conserves the strength and life of his horses, 
and all these count in keeping down the expense 
of farm operations. 

If our roads were built right and were main- 
tained right, a vast saving would result which 



EEAL COST OF OPERATION 221 

would reduce our taxes, and thus another item of 
operating expense upon the farm would be re- 
duced. Generally our roads are fairly well con- 
structed, but in most instances, as soon as they are 
constructed, but little if any intelligent attention is 
paid to them. They soon become worn into ruts 
and holes which gather water, that softens and will 
wear out any road, and in a few short years they 
are in as bad a condition as they were before they 
were improved. An intelligent system of road 
maintenance put in action upon our improved 
highway immediately after it has been finished, 
and maintained without cessation, will not only 
keep our improved highway in perfect condition, 
but will decrease by one-half or more the cost of 
road maintenance and thus reduce our taxes. 

At no distant day the motor truck will be in 
common use upon the farm, for it is being rapidly 
improved in that direction, and cheapened so the 
farmer can afford to use it. When the motor truck 
is so perfected and reduced in price, it will be the 
farmer's best, quickest and cheapest method of 
transporting his products to market, for it will 
mean the elimination of time and distance, and 
thus market his products quickly, in the best con- 
dition, and it will save and conserve the life of his 
horses, and the shrinkage in weight of his live 
stock in transit to market. And when the farm 
tractor comes into general use, it will eliminate 
many of his horses, with their expense of keep, 
from the farm. Even to-day with the high priced 
motor truck, many farmers are using them and are 
greatly reducing the cost of farm operations. If 
the motor truck is properly handled and cared for 



222 THE BUSINESS OF FARMING 

when not in use, it is at no expense except for in- 
surance and the slight cost of depreciation. This 
is not true of the horse. 

In the hauling of grain to market, like wheat, 
oats and rye, it is common practice to put the same 
loose in the wagon bed. So, unless the bed be a 
tight one, much grain is lost along the highway, 
and that this loss is considerable and much more 
than is commonly thought, is evident to the ob- 
serving eye. Recently this fact was noticeably 
brought to the author's attention. A long, dry 
period was experienced and the public highways 
became very dusty and much wheat and oats had 
been hauled to market. A heavy rain fell and in 
a few days the highways were green with the grow- 
ing grain that had fallen from the farmers' 
wagons into the roadway. The loss of grain may 
seem inconsequent to the reader, but take pencil 
and paper and figure upon the basis of the loss of 
from one peck to a bushel of grain from each load 
hauled, and the loss will equal this in many cases, 
and the percentage of loss will startle you, or 
would startle the manufacturer who is ever alert 
to discover and prevent such leakage and loss in 
his manufacturing plant. The farmer, as well as 
the manufacturer, must study to eliminate waste 
from the farm, for herein lies a profit worthy of 
the greatest consideration. 

6th. The reduction of taxes. Taxes, like death, 
are ever present, and are a necessary evil. Taxa- 
tion is the only method of getting funds with which 
to keep up the organization of our society, and what 
would life be without the well regulated society? 

To procure this well regulated society, govern- 



EEAL COST OF OPERATION 223 

ment with its attendant train of officials and ex- 
penses is necessary. We believe our form of 
government to be the best, and yet there are evils 
and misgovernment, and crude methods of doing 
things that obtain which lead to a reckless and 
useless expenditure of much of our tax money, 
which calls for some method of elimination. The 
eliminating process can only be brought about by 
the election of men to office who are honest and 
have the broad vision of governmental affairs, 
who know something of the principles of true 
economy, and who know how to do things right. 
When such men are elected to office, then we will 
have the best management of governmental af- 
fairs ; things will be done upon the best permanent 
and economical basis possible to be obtained, and 
our taxes will thereby be reduced to the minimum. 
The farmer can assist in bringing about this state 
of affairs when he becomes enough of the true 
politician to take an active part in the primaries 
and assists in nominating the men for office who 
come up to the standard named, and to vote for, 
and persuade other men to vote for, such men 
whether they belong to his party or to another. 
The farmer has it in his power to make himself 
felt in the political world if he but asserts himself 
with some vigor. The author has had a long and 
varied experience in politics, and he knows that 
the politician fears the farmer vote, and many and 
varied are his devices to keep it in inactivity un- 
less he can get the farmer's activity going in his 
direction. Be enough of the politician to see that 
the right men are elected to office, and that the 
wrong ones who have been elected are retired. 



CHAPTER XVII 

FARM CREDITS OR FINANCING THE FARM 

THE world is now full of agitation as to how 
best to finance the farmer. One unfamiliar 
with past conditions would think from this agita- 
tion that the farmer of the past or present had 
been unable and could not now borrow a dollar 
with which to carry on his farm operations. And 
yet we doubt whether there has scarcely been a 
period in the agricultural history of our country 
but what the average farmer could borrow all the 
money he ought to have had for his fanning opera- 
tions. 

It has been the history that when any portion of 
our country was opened up for settlement among 
the first arrivals were the bankers and the 
men who extended credit to the tillers of the soil. 
In fact, the farmer has ever been a worthy subject 
of credit. It has been well said ''that his word 
has been taken at par," and that bankers have had 
more confidence in the integrity of the farmer than 
of any other class. 

Thousands of farmers have been able to borrow 
money upon no security other than their reputa- 
tion for honesty, sobriety and industry, and the 
further fact that they were engaged in a business 
that had for its foundation a fertile soil, and the 

221 




ANOTHER LESSON IN PICTURES. 

"But other fell into good ground and Ijrought forth fruit, some 
an hundred fold." 



FAEM CREDITS 225 

surroundings of a seed time and harvest that sel- 
dom failed. So with these conditions obtaining, 
the man with the qualities named back of him, 
seldom failed to make good. And the business of 
farming was regarded as the safest and best 
credit, and it is so regarded in this day, notwith- 
standing much of our soils are passing to an un- 
profitable condition. 

There have been times in our country when no 
farmer could borrow money, or if he could, he 
was compelled to pay an exorbitant interest. 

During the panic of 1903, in the rich corn belt 
there were scores of farmers who lost their farms 
now valued at $150 to $200 per acre, because of 
their inability to get their mortgages extended, and 
the author personally knows of instances where 
mortgages as small as $3000 upon 160 acres of the 
best land ever subjected to cultivation, were fore- 
closed because banks would not extend credit. 
But corn was selling for 15c. per bushel and other 
farm products at like prices. And all business 
was in the throes of a bitter, galling money panic, 
and every business man was being touched with 
its blight. 

During the period extending from 1881 to 1903, 
it came under the personal observation of the au- 
thor that vast sums of money had been loaned to 
farmers upon mortgage security at rates of in- 
terest which were criminal usury, but these un- 
fortunate farmers had gotten deeply in debt be- 
cause of the fact that they were either pioneers or 
direct descendants of pioneers, and their lands 
were new and it was necessaiy they should be 
cleared, ditched, fenced and improved. Improved 



226 THE BUSINESS OF FAEMING 

highways and public ditches became a necessity. 
So the doing of all these things, and they were 
done upon a most extensive scale, called for the 
exiDenditure of large sums of money. The price 
of farm products was low and so the average 
farmer became burdened with debt and became an 
easy prey to money lenders who took advantage 
of his situation to promote their own interests. 
The farmer seemed to be classed as legitimate prey 
along the money lending line. Some were able to 
weather their financial storms, but scores went 
down under the cyclone of mortgage foreclosure 
that followed as a result of their inability to meet 
their mortgages. 

It may be safely stated that as a rule the aver- 
age farmer can secure money or credit to carry 
on a goodly portion of his farm operations, but at 
the same time the author has come to the conclu- 
sion from personal observation, study and inter- 
views, that the business of fanning is either seri- 
ously lacking in the necessary capital to carry on 
successfully its operations, or there is some other 
cause responsible for many of the conditions that 
obtain upon many of our farms. 

Nine-tenths of our farms do not have sufficient 
buildings to house the necessary farm machinery 
to run the farm and so enough farm machinery is 
exposed each year to weather conditions that re- 
sults in almost enough loss to pay the national 
debt. No farmer would leave his implements ex- 
posed if he had the proper buildings in which to 
house them. He simply does not have the money 
to build the buildings in which to properly car*? for 
them and so does the best he can, or he fails to do 



FARM CREDITS 227 

it for other reasons. The same is true with his 
buildings for stock and his fences. 

Many farms need ditching, better plowing, fer- 
tilization with limestone, green crops, manure and 
other methods, but the farmer cannot install these 
things upon his farm for lack of capital. 

The average farmer knows the profit to himself 
and farm in the production of live stock upon the 
farm. But to do this requires capital which many 
cannot get for this purpose, or if it can be secured, 
the interest is so high that stock production does 
not pay. 

We have already shown that the better plowing 
of the soil is neglected because farmers do not 
have sufficient money to buy the heavy draft horses 
or other proper motive power with which it can only 
be brought about. And so we could go on and enu- 
merate many things that are not done upon the 
farm for lack of capital. 

If it may be safely stated that the many worthy 
farmers can under present conditions obtain about 
all the money they need, that many can secure all 
they should have, but yet, does it not remain a fact 
that many ought to have more capital who can not 
get it, and especially many who wish and who 
ought to get back to land who cannot under present 
conditions secure the necessary capital to accom- 
plish their desires? 

We have already shown that the system or plan 
adopted by which the capital can be secured must 
be safeguarded in many ways. 

The government has had a policy by which in 
the several states a school fund was obtained by 
the sale of every sixteenth section of land when 



228 THE BUSINESS OF FARMING 

lands were thrown upon the market by the govern- 
ment. This fund was loaned in Indiana to 
farmers upon farm real estate, the loans being 
made up to one-half the appraised value of the 
land, and were made for five years' time at six 
per cent, interest, and thereafter could be con- 
tinued for as long a period as desired by the bor- 
rower. 

The majority of these loans ran for years and 
it is questionable whether they were a good thing 
for the farmer. The farmer knew they did not 
have to be paid when due ; that they could be con- 
tinued as long as the interest was paid. At one 
time the author was employed by a county to look 
up these loans, and where they were delinquent, 
to see that they were either paid or renewed. He 
found that in many cases they were made upon 
lands not valuable which had been over appraised 
and owned by thriftless farmers, so a large num- 
ber of these loans had gone for over twenty years 
without anything being paid upon the principal. 

A long time loan made upon land well up to its 
real value should have a required yearly payment 
clause, at least after three years, as this will pro- 
mote economy and thrift. Of course time should 
be given the borrower to become established upon 
his land, but as long as he knows he can carry the 
loan for a long series of years without being re- 
quired to make any payment upon the principal, 
he will not hkely make any effort to adjust his 
affairs and expenditures so as to meet payments. 

So the best method of safeguarding a system of 
farm credits is to get into it the element of fear, — 
fear of loss and foreclosure. Let the borrower 



FAEM CEEDITS 229 

understand lie must in the course of a reasonable 
time begin to make some payment upon Ms loan 
or suffer the consequence of bis neglect. 

It is said that mortgaged indebtedness on tbe 
farms is on tbe increase. And so is tbe indebted- 
ness of city business on tbe increase. In fact, 
national, state, and municipal indebtedness is on 
tbe increase. Tbe debt machine everywhere is 
running at too high a rate of speed. Extrav- 
agance has extended into both private and public 
affairs. It is our national sin and there ought to 
be a slowing down process. But at the same time 
we must consider that it is a truth that there would 
have been but little progress in this country of 
ours if it had not been for the vast sums of money 
available for the borrower. Few men would en- 
gage in the business or undertake to carry on our 
different enterprises and business if they were 
the owners of large capital. The men who built up 
both the large and small prosperous enterprises, 
no matter whether found in city or town, have 
been the industrious, honest men without capital, 
who had the confidence of the money leaner and 
began and carried to success their enterprises al- 
most solely upon borrowed capital. There is no 
reason to expect that there will be a change of con- 
ditions in this respect in the future. We must 
expect that all lines of business will be transacted 
by men who will be large borrowers of capital. 

It is shown by statistics that in 1910 it required 
six billions of borrowed money to produce the 
eight billion dollar crop of the year, upon which 
there was paid an average rate of 81/2 per cent, 
interest. But statistics will show that the busi- 



230 THE BUSINESS OF FARMING 

ness of the city required as large, if not a larger 
amount of money in proportion to business done, 
to successfully carry it on. However, it is said 
the city business man has been able to borrow his 
money at a lower rate of interest than the farmer. 

If this be true an injustice is being done to the 
farmer, for if the business of farming is the very 
foundation of every other business, and the very 
existence of man depends upon it, it ought to be 
able to even secure the capital necessary to carry 
it on at the lowest possible rate of interest. We 
must safeguard it in this respect or our nation 
goes into decay and death. 

We are removing the hindrances to the business 
of farming by better education, better farm litera- 
ture, better marketing facilities and in numerous 
other ways, but we must not neglect the main 
thing, the ''sinews of war" of the business of farm- 
ing, capital. For without capital at living rates 
of interest, the farmer is helpless. 

The political demagogue in this country has done 
much to lessen the supply of money for the busi- 
ness of farming. It seems that most of us have 
been so busy with our personal affairs that we for- 
got to attend the primaries or conventions and so 
we have sent men to our legislative bodies, many 
of whom were as ignorant of business as little chil- 
dren, or else were unscrupulous, and so laws have 
been enacted under the guise of correcting imagi- 
nary evils, which have actually driven legitimate 
capital from some of our states to the detriment of 
the business of farming. 

But the tide is turning and the nation is realiz- 
ing that capital is a legitimate enterprise with its 



FARM CREDITS 231 

evils the same as you find in every line of human 
enterprise, that can be controlled and directed by 
sane legislation so that it will be the power for 
good it was intended to be in every community of 
our land. We must safeguard capital, labor, and 
business enterprise, and give them the broadest 
opportunity, and thanks to a sane and safe man at 
the head of our nation, the things are being done 
that will open the way for this greater opportun- 
ity. When the way is open and it is made safe 
from the political demagogue or other piratical in- 
fluences, then will capital begin its journey and go 
into every part and portion of our land, extending 
its helping hand to business enterprises. When 
capital is seeking and importuning for opportunity 
of investment, then down comes the rates of in- 
terest and there is opportunity for the honest bor- 
rower to secure all the money he needs in any legit- 
imate business. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

THE CONSERVATION OF HEALTH AND HUMAN LIFE 
ON THE FARM 

THE conservation of human life in the poverty 
and vice districts of our congested cities is a 
tremendous problem, touching the heart and purse 
of our philanthropic spirit. It is, however, as im- 
portant a problem in the workingmen and working 
women districts of our cities. The incessant, toil 
and grind of our underpaid workers, struggling 
against the ever rising tide of the high cost of liv- 
ing, is cruelly breaking down the ambition, the 
hope, the courage, and crushing the health and 
lives out of millions of our people. 

But the farm has not been without this human 
tragedy. It does not, however, exist to-day to so 
great an extent as in past periods of our farm 
history. In the cities it is hard to remedy the 
condition of the underfed and the overworked; 
in the country there has never been any excuse for 
its existence. 

The author has seen the farmer with his broad 
acres and large, young family, going the pace of 
the grind that drives from the farm to the city, 
the insane asylum, and that kills. 

Plenty of work amid healthful surroundings, 
with enough of the right kind of food, properly 
prepared, with plenty of the life-giving balm of 

232 




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CONSERVATION OF HEALTH 238 

sleep, a dash of liarmless amnsement and recrea- 
tion, never kills any man, woman or child. It is 
only the incessant work amid conditions that 
breeds disease, without food properly cooked for 
eating, and without the period of relaxation and 
rest, that kills. The author has seen the young 
farmer and wife, even on a farm of 160 or more 
acres, arise at the unseemly hour of four o'clock 
in the morning, rousing out the young family of 
six or more children, putting them to work in the 
preparation of the breakfast, feeding of the stock, 
harnessing of work horses, etc., then sitting down 
to a quickly and illy prepared breakfast, gulping 
it down in haste ; then the father hurrying the boys 
to the field long before the morning light had lit 
up the landscape, where, with broken rest and 
tired bodies, they listlessly toiled until the dinner 
hour. The mother would hurry the girls to the 
milking, the care of the house, poultry and the 
garden, they toiling under the same conditions of 
broken rest and tired bodies. The dinner and 
supper hour were but the repetition of the hurly- 
burly of the morning. Work in the fields and 
household extended far into the fading twilight. 
Chores about the house and barn were done by 
lamp light. The beds were sought by tired, un- 
relaxed bodies, who secured but a fitful sleep, only 
to be awakened for the same daily monotonous 
grind. A few years, including both winter and 
summer of this kind of cruel living bent and 
wrinkled the once blithef ul, pretty body and face of 
the mother, made her body an easy prey of disease 
and she was stricken with an untimely death. She 
would be laid among the weeds and brush growth 



234 THE BUSINESS OF FARMING 

in an average neglected country burj^ing ground, 
and a cheap stone erected at the head of her grave, 
upon which, through the weeds and brush, you may 
see inscribed ''Sacred to the Memory of Eliza 
Jane, Wife of John Jones." A more fitting in- 
scription would have been ''Here Lies the Tired 
Worn-out Body of Eliza Jane, Wife of John Jones, 
whose life was crushed out by an Unnecessary 
System of Farm Living.'* 

Insufficient sanitation and the deadly well have 
given death a rich harvest upon the farm. The 
author has seen almost whole families swept away 
by the deadly typhoid fever whose origin was 
traced to a contaminated or neglected well, or to 
some cesspool near the farm dwelling. The ex- 
istence of these death traps are due to ignorance, 
indifference, or laziness. There is not the slight- 
est excuse for their existence upon the farm. 

A farmer owes it to his family to furnish them, 
as well as himself, with plenty of pure water which 
is the great preventative of disease. A pure water 
supply upon most farms can only be obtained by 
the driven or drilled well put down to a sufficient 
depth to secure water from a stratum which can- 
not be reached by surface contamination. The 
open or dug well or the shallow driven or drilled 
well, are nearly always death traps and should be 
avoided as a pestilence. The author has seen 
water drawn from dozens of farm wells that was 
ill smelling and with a most repulsive taste. 
These waters were laden with the germs of the 
most fatal diseases, and yet their owners were 
making no effort to improve them. That the peo- 
ple who partook of the water of these wells were 



CONSEEVATION OF HEALTH 235 

not stricken with fatal diseases was because their 
bodies were in condition to resist diseases, but 
alas! the cemeteries contain the decayed and de- 
caying bodies of scores of people whose bodies 
could not resist or throw off these disease germs 
and so they were stricken down before their time, 
upon each of whose tombstones should be inscribed 
*'A Victim of the Contaminated Well," as a warn- 
ing to the living. 

A short time ago the author visited a farm home 
where the good wife of the farmer lay stricken 
with a severe case of typhoid fever. For location, 
the farm was beautifully and healthfully situated. 
So the author began to look about to see if he could 
find the source of the dread disease. The yards 
surrounding both home and barn were ideal. 
They, as well as all out buildings were clean, well 
drained and free from any filth which would har- 
bor typhoid germs. Knowing that typhoid fever 
is, in the largest number of cases, contracted from 
typhoid germs found in the drinking water, the 
author investigated the well and found an alarm- 
ing state of affairs, which in his judgment, was the 
source of the disease, yet the family seemed utterly 
unconscious of this fact. The well was situated 
close to the house in an angle of the building. It 
was a shallow well covered with large boards laid 
upon the ground around the well, which left large 
cracks between each board. This loosely con- 
structed platform was about fifteen feet square, 
and to enter the kitchen and another room of the 
house, it was necessary to pass over it. The dirt 
of the barnyard and barns were carried by the feet 
upon this platform. The dirt from the home was 



236 THE BUSINESS OF FARMING 

swept upon this platform. The platform could 
not possibly bo cleaned without a great portion of 
this filth being swept or washed into the cracks of 
the boards. Tliere being no shed over the plat- 
form, the rains fell upon it. The kitchen floor was 
scrubbed and the dirty water swept out upon the 
platform. The water from the scrubbing and the 
rains carried the filth and dirt down into the well. 
The season being dry, the water became low, ty- 
plioid germs developed in the drinking water. 
The woman's body was not in condition to resist 
disease and she was stricken, and it was easy to see 
from whence she contracted the awful malady. 

If a farmer has a well with even the suspicion of 
contamination, all other work on the farm should 
be suspended until this evil is corrected. If he 
has not the money to pay for its correction, he had 
better borrow it, and if he can not borrow it, he 
had better sell the best horse or cow on the farm 
to secure the necessary money. 

Health and human life can be greatly conserved 
on the farm by properly constructed dwellings 
providing for the disposal of sewerage and wastes, 
but more of this in another chapter. 

It is useless to attempt to conserve health and 
life upon the farm unless they who reside on the 
farm are supplied with plenty of wholesome, well, 
and properly cooked food. To some this may 
seem a strange statement, considering that the 
average farm produces so much and so varied a 
supply of human food. Many of our farm wives 
and daughters are good cooks and put upon their 
tables meals fit for a king, and as health giving as 



CONSERVATION OF HEALTH 237 

can be prepared. But do not deceive yourselves 
by thinking that this condition obtains generally 
now upon the farm, and has always so obtained. 
The summers of six years of the author's life were 
spent in following his trade of a stone and brick 
mason, and a large amount of his work at his trade 
was done for farmers, and he was compelled to 
board among them. The memories of a great 
number of the meals of these days haunt him yet. 
Tired and hungry from his work he has sat down 
to meals, prepared by farmers' wives who had at 
hand a burden of the best food products of the 
farm and proper facilities for cooking same, that 
were enough to sicken the stoutest stomach. And 
these were not isolated cases by any means. 
Their number was appalling and they were found 
in the ''best families." The author was un- 
married then, but he vowed a vow that he would 
never marry any woman until he first ascertained 
whether she was a good cook, and he is happy to 
state that he found just such a woman and that 
she was a product of the farm, and learned the 
fine art of domestic science from a skilled country 
mother. 

A system providing for the proper number of 
hours of labor, with improved labor-strength- 
saving machinery, sane periods of rest amid 
healthful or sanitary surroundings, plenty of well 
cooked food, supplemented with liberal amounts 
of recreation, will do much to conserve the health 
of human life upon the farm, and every farmer 
owes it, not only to himself and his family, but 
to mankind, to put forth every effort along these 



238 THE BUSINESS OF FAEMING 

conservation lines for herein is based the hap- 
piness and the prosperity of the farm, for without 
health we are indeed surrounded with *' shallows 
and miseries.'* 




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CHAPTER XIX 

FARM BOOKKEEPING 

EVERY man engaged in a business ought to 
keep a set of books in order to know whether 
his business pays. If it does not pay he of course 
will find it out in due time, although he kept no 
record of his business transactions. But that time 
may be too late. He may be in the throes of bank- 
ruptcy. Some system of bookkeeping is necessary 
in every line of business. Bookkeeping is the 
chart and compass necessary to have in sailing the 
ship of business upon the mercantile sea. 

City business requires a more elaborate system 
of bookkeeping and so men are employed as book- 
keepers well trained in the art. A trial balance 
is necessary to ascertain the drift of the business. 

But few engaged in the business of farming 
could afford to employ a bookkeeper to keep track 
of farming operations, so the system of farm book- 
keeping must be of the simplest kind. The aver- 
age farmer would not recognize a trial balance no 
matter where he might come in contact with it. 
And it is not necessary that he should recognize it 
in order that he may successfully carry on his busi- 
ness. 

The richest farmers the author ever knew were 
men who could neither read nor write. He recalls 

239 



240 THE BUSINESS OF FARMING 

one farmer who loaned thousands of dollars to 
scores of parties, and yet he could tell to a cent 
the amount of interest that was due at any time 
upon any of his loans, and the amount of the loans, 
when due, etc. 

And the author has known farmers who kept a 
good system of farm bookkeeping that made fail- 
ures of their business. But neither of these cases 
argue for or against farm bookkeeping. 

Farmers of the j^ast generally had no training 
whatever in the art of bookkeeping, and even if 
they had, the exaction of their business was such, 
that they were too tired at the close of their day's 
work to spend much time in bookkeeping. 

But the up to date scientific farmer with the im- 
proved farm machineiy that lessens his hours of 
toil has the time untaxed from physical exertion 
to devote to a simple system of a farm bookkeeping 
which ought to be instituted upon his farm. 

For years the author has kept a farm diary in 
which he has daily written a short account, show- 
ing the kind of weather and what was done upon 
the farm in each particular day of the year. This 
has proven of great value to him. As in the 
former year's record he found much that was of 
value for the present year's operations, in these 
daily records he kept the time of labor employed 
for each day, and names of parties who performed 
the labor, the kind of labor done, and also of any 
expenditures or purchases. His diary thus be- 
came a simple day journal by which he kept a com- 
plete track of his farm operations, and the time 
consumed in keeping this record was so small that 
it was not irksome in the least. It was done at 



FAEM BOOKKEEPINa 241 

the close of each day before retiring. In connec- 
tion with this simple diary he kept an account of 
articles purchased for the farm, and of every 
article sold, showing purchaser and price received 
for each article sold. 

From such a simple system of bookkeeping the 
average farmer ought to be able to know whether 
his business pays. He can easily tell whether he 
is prospering. He may not be able to figure de- 
preciation, interest on capital, charges for his own 
labor and such things to that nicety and exactness 
that the trained bookkeeper with his elaborate 
trial balances would be able to figure out, nor 
would he debit his business with every cent it ought 
to be debited with, but he would know whether he 
is ''going into the hole," or how much he was 
running behind each year. It would not require an 
elaborate system of bookkeeping to show him that 
he had a home surrounded with the comforts and 
pleasures of life and was possessed of a business 
that had great possibilities for those other profits 
that were greater to him than "bookkeeping 
profits. ' ' 

An elaborate system of bookkeeping upon the 
farm no doubt might in many cases teach us that a 
real farm home might not be a money making in- 
stitution, but as some one has said a real farm 
home *'is a place to live, not a place to make a liv- 
ing. A place to rest, not to toil. A place to meet 
friends, not customers. ' ' 

A complete system of bookkeeping upon the 
farm figuring depreciation, interest, insurance 
upon his property upon which there is no debt, and 
the farmer's labor would doom every farmer to a 



242 THE BUSINESS OF FARMING 

loss, which if eliminated in calculations would 
show a handsome profit in his farm operations. 

Keep in mind the rational home rather than ra- 
tional bookkeeping. If you are a ''back to the 
lander" don't forget the expense and annoyance 
of the flat or other city dwelling, and the city liv- 
ing you escaped. Compare it in all things with the 
farm living. Consider the standard of living you 
now have for your family. 

The elaborate system of bookkeeping will figure 
cost of farm operations down to the greatest frac- 
tion of a cent, but it will never figure the comforts, 
the pleasures and the profits of the good living 
your farm gives or sells, although it may not give 
or sell the profit in dollars and cents. 

But we still believe the farmer ought to become 
familiar with farm bookkeeping and put it into 
practice in his business for it may show him where 
he can eliminate waste and how to curtail expenses 
in many ways that will make his business more 
profitable. 

The system of bookkeeping for the farm should 
therefore be one with the frills of the city book- 
keeping left off. A simple record of farm trans- 
actions from which any fanner could be able to 
ascertain whither his business is drifting finan- 
cially, is all that is needed. 

"We believe that the curriculum of agricultural 
studies, no matter whether for the public schools 
or colleges, should give bookkeeping a prominent 
place, for knowledge of this subject will make it 
easier for the man engaged in the business of 
farming to keep up even a simple system of farm 
bookkeeping and will also enable him to keep the 



FABM BOOKKEEPING 243 

more elaborate bookkeeping system as well, if his 
fancy should prompt him to indulge in the higher 
lines of bookkeeping. 

The details of every business should be closely 
looked after, but the slave to details is apt to over- 
look the essential thing in his zeal for details. 
Therefore, the farmer who spends the time, 
energy, and thought, upon the mere details of his 
business like bookkeeping and the like, that should 
be spent in looking after the essential things of his 
farm, like proper care of his stock or his soil, is 
sacrificing too much for the minor things of his 
business. 

While farm bookkeeping should not be omitted 
from our farm economy, yet the business of farm- 
ing has been carried on successfully by a great 
number of persons without it, and could be so car- 
ried on in the future. The point we wish to em- 
phasize is, look after the essentials first and do not 
attempt to do those things to a nicety that are not 
so essential to the success of your business. 



CHAPTER XX 

THE RETIRED FARMER AND THE FARMER AS AN OFFICE 
HOLDER AND CITY BUSINESS MAN 

WHEN we consider the startling fact that 
eighty per cent, of the cities' business 
and professional men, sixty per cent, of the men 
and forty-five per cent, of the women teachers in 
our city public schools, were reared on the farm, 
and that these men and women are of the best 
blood of our farms, is it not time to stop and in- 
quire what is the matter with the business of farm- 
ing that allows this blood to flow from its region 
into the region of city life ? 

Is there a plethora of workers, brains and good 
blood upon the farm which is compelled to seek 
employment elsewhere in order to exist? We are 
loathe to believe it, at least we will not believe it, 
until every mouth in our land is filled three times 
a day with enough food to satisfy the pangs of 
hunger, and every human body of our land is 
comfortably clothed from the products of the f aim. 

Of course our cities will ever continue to gather 
from the farms its best blood, but some awful 
wrong is being allowed to exist when so great a 
per cent, of the farm's best blood is allowed to 
flow unrestricted to the city. This blood is needed 
upon the farms and will be more needed if our 
soils are permitted to continue upon their road to 

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THE RETIEED FARMER 245 

destruction, as mucli of them are being headed in 
that direction by a thoughtless method of farming. 
But we have already called attention to this hin- 
drance to the business of farming, and have given 
the remedy which will largely correct it. 

There is another deplorable state of affairs ob- 
taining in many portions of our fair land to-day 
that means a greater menace to the business of 
farming. In most any city of two thousand in- 
habitants, and over, and in most all our villages of 
less than two thousand inhabitants, we find al- 
ready erected or in the process of erection, innu- 
merable houses of no mean design and dimension, 
which have been erected or are being erected by 
farmers who have, and are retiring from their 
farms and leaving them in the hands of tenants. 
And it is a distressing fact that the larger per cent, 
of these farmers must depend upon the returns of 
their farms for their support, and a deplorable 
fact that their farms are leased under the one year 
plan that means certain death to any farm. More 
than thirty per cent, of the farm lands of our 
country are in the hands of tenants already, and 
the percentage is increasing at an alarming rate. 

This state of affairs can and does mean nothing 
else than the awful fact that the acres of these 
rented farms will be put under the lash, and the 
''whip and spur method of farming" will obtain 
upon them, and they will be forced to produce 
every dollar they can that both tenant and land- 
lord may live. Not even the thought of soil con- 
servation or fertility maintenance will ever be al- 
lowed to enter the minds of either tenant or land- 
lord, and year by year, under such methods of 



246 THE BUSINESS OF FARMING 

farming, the acres of tliese farms will lose little by 
little, yea, much by much, of their fertility until 
within less than a generation barrenness and 
sterility will be their doom. 

Do not understand that the author is condemn- 
ing the tenant or a proper tenant system. They 
are both a legitimate and necessary part of our 
farm economy and must be conserved along right 
lines. But to accomplish and bring about this 
state of affairs there must be in some manner in- 
stilled into the hearts of both landlord and tenant 
the spirit of ''fair play." The miserly, grasp- 
ing, exacting landlord and the tenant thieving 
''whip and spur" method of farming make a com- 
bination that will bankrupt any landlord or tenant, 
or drive any soil into abandonment. 

We have already said something about the ten- 
ant system obtaining in England. A system by 
which landlords rent their lands for a series of 
years, in many cases for periods of twenty years, 
and receive for rental as much as $20 or even more 
per acre. But the tenants proceed to farm these 
lands as if they were their own. They farm them 
to make them pay. They feed the lands with 
animal, mineral and green manure. They plow 
deep and give the best possible tillage and grow 
the crops that are in demand and produce the 
quality that commands the best market. These 
tenants without exception are prospering and 
many of them are amassing wealth. The landlord 
not only receives a large yearly rental, but receives, 
the increase in value of the fertile farm. 

Can any one advance a sound reason why such 
things are not possible in this the land of oppor- 



THE RETIRED FARMER 247 

tunity? It will never be done under a one year 
tenancy. Is it not an opportune time for the land- 
lords and tenants of our land to get together and 
wake up to their possibilities. 

The excuse of the owners of these farms for the 
criminal desertion of their farms is that they wish 
to escape the drudgery of the farm, or they are 
seeking educational advantages for their children, 
all of which are nonsensical, untrue, and not 
worthy the name of an excuse. The same money 
expended to plant themselves in the city or village 
would build and equip the most modern and attrac- 
tive buildings, equipped with every labor saving 
device and comfort known to any city home. Sys- 
tems of water works, lighting and heating are now 
accessible to every farm home as cheap, substan- 
tial and serviceable as can be installed in any city 
or village home. The perfected phonograph and 
musical and other devices for amusement are 
possible upon the farm. 

The automobile, trolly lines and railroads, and 
other facilities to obtain an education, make it 
possible for the farm boy or girl to obtain an edu- 
cation as easily as the city boy or girl, and there is 
no need for the farmer to move to city or town 
to give his children these educational facilities. 
And by remaining on the farm he escapes the most 
serious and disastrous things that can befall the 
young boy or girl, — idleness and the false view and 
notion that we are in this world for the pleasure 
we may get out of it. If the farmer remains on 
the farm and sends his boys and girls to the city 
school tliat provides for agricultural and domestic 
science training, they return during vacations and 



248 THE BUSINESS OF FARMING 

find work to do that aids in the building of their 
characters, and fits them for the active duties of 
life and good citizenship. Whereas, if they five in 
the city or village, their vacations are spent in 
idleness that so unfits the boy and girl for the 
serious duties of life. 

If, then, the farmer can secure upon the farm the 
enjoyments and privileges that can be obtained in 
the city, why should he bring himself within the 
other environments of the city that are pernicious 
to himself and family ? 

For a half century the author has lived in close 
contact with the farmers of the rich corn belt of 
Indiana. For years he was the legal adviser for 
hundreds of these farmers. He mingled with 
them and their families, even in their homes. He 
has talked to them as a public speaker in their 
school houses, churches and public halls, discussing 
politics, temperance, and farm problems. And he 
has ever been a close observer of their class. Let- 
ting his memory go back over these years of ac- 
tivity and intermingling, he recalls scores of 
farmers who moved from the fann to the city 
either as office holders, or seekers of better busi- 
ness and educational opportunities, and peaceful 
retirement, and nearly eveiy single one of them 
made the greatest mistake of their lives. 

He has seen active men with industrious, inter- 
esting wives and children, live forces in the fann 
communities in which they resided, and living un- 
der conditions that ought to have contributed con- 
tentment, happiness and plenty, who began to 
dream of office holding and city merchant's lives, 
and came to the city to realize them. 



THE RETIRED FARMER 249 

While the dreaming: of dreams has led to great 
achievements and successes, yet it has too often 
led into the direction of failure and disaster. 

Joseph, wisest statesman of any age, dreamed 
the dreams that led him to the throne of Egypt, 
where his wise methods of action saved the Egyp- 
tian and his own people from the ravages of fam- 
ine. Aaron Burr was also a dreamer of dreams, 
but his dreaming led him to the heights of 
sovereign power and dignity in our nation, where 
his methods of action made him to become the most 
despised statesman of our history. 

The lives of these men have been exemplified in 
the lives of thousands of men of smaller caliber who 
have dreamed dreams and sought their accomplish- 
ment. Some made good, the great majority failed. 
Those farmer dreamers observed by the author 
came to the city, as county office holders, or became 
city merchants. They found themselves under 
different environments. Their habits of life were 
entirely changed which called for a greater ex- 
penditure of money than that to which they had 
been accustomed. They were exposed to tempta- 
tions to which they had never been subjected be- 
fore. They and their families became impreg- 
nated with false notions of life and living. Upon 
the farm opportunities for work were ever present, 
which built up their better natures and made them 
what God designed they should be. The city life 
destroyed their opportunity for work and the curse 
that follows, idleness, fell to their lot. 

When the terms of office of these men expired 
they and their families found themselves so tightly 
bound with the cords of city environment that 



250 THE BUSINESS OF FAEMING 

they resented any proposal to move back to tlie 
farm, and tliese men were persuaded to embark 
into some city business for which they had no 
adaptation or training, and so it was but a short 
time until they made miserable failures and their 
property was swept away and for ever afterwards 
they were as derelicts upon life's sea. And of the 
few who at the expiration of their term of office 
did go back to the old farm home, it was with a dis- 
contented and dissatisfied spirit which so hung 
about them that it prevented them from getting 
properly back into country life again. 

The effects of city environments caused the 
women and children of these men to so act towards 
their old neighbors and friends as to stir up ani- 
mosity and strife. The men themselves, had, too, 
fallen under the effect of city environment that 
leads to speculation, were no longer content to de- 
vote their entire attention to the business of farm- 
ing, so they engaged in contracting for the doing 
of public work, stock buying, or some work for the 
doing of which they had no training or experience. 
Their farms and the business of farming were 
neglected and they too in time found their property 
swept away and the remainder of their lives were 
bound with misery. 

The men who did not come to the city as office 
holders, but to engage in a city business for which 
they had no adaptation or training, also, as well 
as their families, fell under the spell of the city's 
environments and temptations, their lives and 
business became failures and their property too 
was swept away. 

The author has seen numbers of farmers who 



THE RETIRED FARMER 251 

caught the fever of ''retiring from the farm." 
God pity the farmer that comes under the spell of 
this insidious farm disease. 

After years of living upon the farm home which 
should have in those years been transformed into 
such a haven of rest that no temptation on earth 
could compel him to leave it, the fanner suddenly 
discovers he is working too hard, or that the place 
is not large enough for himself and the boys, and 
he begins to dream of the ease and peace of a re- 
tired city or town life. Part of the dream becomes 
a reality. The life-long associations of the old 
farm home are left behind and he and his good 
wife and younger children settle down amid new 
environments, only to find within a short time that 
they cannot shake off the old environment for the 
new. In the majority of cases it is found that 
city and town expenses exceed their incomes and 
in their attempt to adjust incomes to meet ex- 
penses, they resist and kick against every improve- 
ment inaugurated, and appeals made for charity 
or religious purposes. 

The author recalls one retired farmer who when 
he lived upon the farm was a devout Christian, the 
leader of the church and Sunday school of his com- 
munity, and never missed a religious service. 
When he retired to the city he transferred his 
church membership to the city church and enrolled 
himself with the men's bible class in the Sunday 
school. All the members of the class had pledged 
themselves to contribute ten cents per Sunday. 
Rather than pay ten cents per Sunday this man 
quit going to the Sunday school. He was com- 
pelled to save every possible cent that he might livt 



252 THE BUSINESS OF PARMING 

within his limited income. It is needless to say 
that he developed into a kicker, and kicked against 
every movement of the church or his city that 
called for the expenditure of moliey. Had he re- 
mained on the farm he would have still enjoyed his 
church privileges and been a power for good in 
the farm community, lived a peaceful life, spared 
himself much humiliation, and the town community 
would have avoided his irritable presence. 

The author has seen old people retire from the 
farm to the city, who, on the farm had been sur- 
rounded with life-long, kind, and sympathetic 
friends and neighbors who were their close 
daily companions. City people are divided into 
clannish, narrow circles too often bent on society's 
doings and pleasures. The women of the thriftier 
class are caught in the maddening rush of parties, 
entertainments and receptions, and those of the 
middle or poorer class are caught in the grind of 
respectable and abject poverty. City men gener- 
ally must be madly engrossed in the business or 
work in order to maintain their positions or even 
to live. Such a body of engrossed men and women 
are not likely to take on new acquaintances or 
associations, and they merely politely notice the 
retired farmer or his family, so he finds himself 
''midst the crowd, the hum, the shock of men." 
*He sees, hears and feels, but he cannot possess.' 
He roams about the city's street with 'none to 
bless him or none whom he can bless,' with kind 
and good companionship — the awfulness of soli- 
tude midst the crowd that throng him becomes his 
lot. Upon the farm he had the consolation of 



THE RETIRED FARMER 253 

friends, the health and pleasure giving work that 
is not to be found in the new city home. 

Go into any city or town in the fore part of 
spring, summer or autumn days, and you will see 
these retired farmers in their buggies heading to- 
wards their farms to spend the day. The look 
upon their faces too plainly bespeaks their un- 
happiness, and that they feel they are not needed 
in the city. Nor are they needed there, because 
they cannot assimilate with the city's life and ac- 
tivity. Cities and towns need young, active, enter- 
prising and constructive men. The country needs 
the experience, advice and the money of the men 
who would retire from the farm to the city. It has 
been well s.aid that ''a retired farmer is capital 
going to waste." 

And yet there is a pathetic side to this question 
that appeals to us. Too often none but the old 
folks remain on the farm. The children are gone 
and the father and mother sit in the old farm home 
lonely in life's decline. Though surrounded with 
plenty and to spare, yet they look out through 
misty eyes into "the orchard where the children 
used to play, ' ' and their * ' old hearts seem so empty 
every way" as they dream and dream of their 
happiest days when their children were young and 
were all in the old home nest. But it is even 
better to sit in lonesomeness and dream your lives 
away with your old friends, mid the scenes of your 
tenderest associations than to add to your heart- 
aches the misery of the lonesomeness and solitude 
you surely will find in a new home in city or town. 

Many retired farmers say they want to go to 



254 THE BUSINESS OF FARMING 

towii to rest, forgetting the fact that true rest can 
never be found in idleness. It is only found in 
activity that leads out the mind in thought. The 
farmer, if he sticks in town, loses that interest in 
the farm that leads to experimenting, and in the 
study of new methods, and so the farm is neglected. 
He wanders about the streets in idleness and seeks 
the company of idle men. You will find him on the 
street corners, in stores or where idle men congre- 
gate, discoursing problems of state, national and 
local government, and nine times out of ten these 
discussions partake of the nature of opposition 
or a kick. He neither constructs nor buildeth 
himself, and wants no one else to construct or 
build. 

The death rate among retired farmers is larger 
and there is a reason for this. A man who has 
been an active worker all his life is generally a 
heavy eater, for he must needs be in order that his 
body be kept in condition for the best service. 
When he becomes an idle man, and most all retired 
farmers do become idle men when they move to the 
city or town, he does not generally change his 
haljits of eating. Idleness and over eating, espe- 
cially in elderly people, make a combination that 
soon brings on disease and death. 

To the farmer who is about to retire from the 
farm we say ** Don't." Retire on the farm. Take 
the money that is required to establish yourself in 
the city or town, and build a house for your tenant. 
Install in your old home every modern device that 
brings comfort and lessens toil. Fix up the old 
home surroundings with flowers, trees and shrubs. 
Touch up the old orchard with trimming, spraying 



THE RETIEED FARMER 255 

and fertilization. All this will keep you busy and 
give you work worth while, and work that will not 
only prolong and make happy your life, but will be 
an uplift to your family, your neighlDor, and to 
your fellowmen. You will be keeping in touch 
with the farm and will get in the right mental state 
towards your soil that will lead you to increase its 
fertility. Gather around you the best farm litera- 
ture, keep active with all the organizations of 
church and the like that promote the betterment of 
farm life and society. If in the doing of all these 
things your life becomes insipid and you begin to 
dream of city life again, take on some fad like pro- 
ducing and perfecting a special breed of stock, 
chickens, seed com, fruit or the like, and work at it 
until it interests your every moment. It will not 
only amuse and interest you, but will result in 
profit, and keep you from rusting out, and above 
all, will keep you on the farm and keep you from 
the heartaches you surely will find if you flee to 
city life. 



CHAPTER XXI 

EELATION OF RELIGION TO FARM LIFE 

THE cynical non-religious reader will not be 
able to see wlierein religion has nnich to do 
with the business of farming. But if he will con- 
sider he will find that it has much to do with it. 
Everything that breeds content with one's station 
should be courted and won and be made a part of 
us. 

Life at its best is full of sorrow, discontent and 
a restlessness that seeks for a happiness which is 
seldom if ever found. That restlessness which 
leads us to put forth the effort to so improve our 
surroundings that toil will be lessened and effi- 
ciency be promoted, or will make better husbands 
and wives and children, citizens or neighbors, is 
to be encouraged; but the restlessness which seeks 
pleasures that never please, but make us worth 
less for having enjoyed them, should be frowned 
upon and discouraged. Therefore anything that 
will bring to our hearts peace and contentment and 
leads us into i^aths of usefulness, should be en- 
couraged in every way. 

The religious faith of our fathers, fought for 
through dungeon, fire and blood, founded upon the 
simple life and teachings of the Christ, has been 
the living faith that has touched the hearts of noble 
men and women, bringing peace and joy to their 

256 




••rilE FRUIT OF VINE AND TREE AXU OF VARIED 

HUE." 

Fruit of many kinds is possible for every farm, no matter 
where situated. And there is nothing produced upon the farm 
which adds more to the health, good cheer and pleasures of farm 
life than an abundance of varied. fruits. 



EELIGION AND FAEM LIFE 257 

souls, removing the burdens of sorrow, brighten- 
ing life's journey, and making earthly existence 
worth while. 

The author has never possessed an over abun- 
dance of this peace giving religion, but an exten- 
sive observation has led him to the sure conclusion 
that this simple religious faith makes not only bet- 
ter men and women, but puts into their hearts that 
spirit of peacefulness and contentment that makes 
them proud of their station in life, shows them the 
golden opportunities lying at their very doors, and 
causes them to strive only for the better things of 
life ; to dream the dreams of usefulness and not of 
folly and unsatisfying pleasures. 

It is universally conceded that no city commu- 
nity would be a safe place in which to live if 
churches and church privileges were wiped out. 
The church is the safety valve of every community. 
A farm community prospers in proportion as its 
churches prosper. This has ever been true, and 
will so continue. Therefore any farmer who has 
the best interests of his family at heart, must con- 
tribute and aid in maintaining the best and most 
active church life in his midst. 

Our ancestors fled from the religious oppression 
of the old world, endured the hardships of the 
early ocean voyages, came to the bleak, barren, un- 
hospitable shores of the new country, and amidst 
discouragements and hindrances, which only the 
religion of the Christ could help them to endure, 
forged out a civilization, founded upon a puritani- 
cal religion, which has given us the spirit of 
thanksgiving and the sturdy manhood upon which 
has been builded much of the greatness of this 



258 THE BUSINESS OF FARMING 

country of ours. Our fathers realized that the 
youth educated without the training of the church 
was like a rudderless ship upon life's sea, where 
he became an easy prey to temptation and easily 
succumbed to vice and immorality which abound 
in plenty in the weak church community. 

George Frederick Wells has well said, "The 
American farmer was at one time preeminently re- 
ligious. Whether he lived as the child of the Puri- 
tan theocracy or as the patron of early Virginian 
aristocracy, he tilled the soil in order that he might 
worship God and rear his children in the fear of 
the Lord. AATiether he cleared the forest under 
Penn, the patriarch of piety, or planted his wind- 
mills by the steeples of New Amsterdam, his fire- 
side was his synagogue and his temple the house 
of prayer. ' ' 

And so we might add that the children of this 
American farmer went out from the old homestead 
hallowed by a Christian association that followed 
them to the city, and that led them to found the 
city church that made the cities a safe place in 
which to live, and extended the missionary spirit 
that is evangelizing the world. 

This preeminent religious faith of the early 
American farmer gave to his children an inherit- 
ance more valuable than the other education he 
gave them, or the dollars he left for their inherit- 
ance. It gave them that sturdiness of character 
essential for the enjoying of the higher and better 
life. 

You cannot truthfully say that any of these chil- 
dren when they had left the old home nest forgot 
the religious training of the old home. Some of 



EELIGION AND FAEM LIFE 259 

the weaker ones by reason of their lack of strength 
may have fallen victims to temptation, yet in the 
darkest hour of their lives, they never forgot the 
religious life of the old home fireside or the simple 
religious faith of father and mother. And this 
religious faith was the shield that protected the 
stronger children from the temptations and vices 
of life. 

There was a time upon the farm when almost the 
whole community attended church services. In 
most farm communities the majority attend now, 
and yet in many communities the rural church has 
gone into decay. 

It is not our purpose to enter into a discussion 
of the cause of the decay of the country church. 
Our purpose is to emphasize the fact that the live 
spiritual practicable church is needed upon the 
farm, located where it is most practicable to reach 
every one engaged in the business of farming. 
Every tiller of the soil to get the best out of life 
for himself and family must *'find the home of his 
higher life in a living church." 

We sometimes fear that we are devoting too 
much time to the promulgation of the foreign 
missionary spirit to the neglect of the rural 
church. Is it not better to first give us the strong 
church in every farm and city community and 
then let the light of the church extend out and 
beyond ? 

If sectarianism has been one of the chief causes 
of the decadence of the country church, then the 
sooner sectarianism is eliminated, the better. It 
is the simple religion of the Christ teaching the 
Golden Eule and the brotherhood of man, that 



260 THE BUSINESS OF FAEMING 

is needed. The dogmatic doctrine of a dogmatic 
churcli should have no place in any community. 

The great movement now being put forth to up- 
lift the business of farming will be a failure if it 
fails to include in its panacea for the uplift of the 
business, a genuine religion for the farm. But it 
is up to the farmer to provide these means by 
which this religion can be secured, and he will do it 
if he can be made to see the need of it to himself 
and to his family. He must be made to see, how- 
ever, just as the city church must be made to see, 
that the church must be a place where the social 
side of life must be joroperly developed, and that 
the problems of his business are as sacred as re- 
ligious topics and that there is no harm in dis- 
cussing them in the church at opportune times. 

The country church should be the social and 
educational as well as the religious center of every 
farm community. 

We hear it so frequently said that the country 
church decays in proportion as the number of farm 
tenants increase. If this be true it is indeed a 
sad sitate of affairs. Is there a reason why the 
church should not appeal to a tenant and his 
family? Is he any less a human being because he 
is not a land owner? He and his family are sub- 
ject to the same laws of life and being. He cer- 
tainly needs the consolation, the uplift and the 
peace of the simple church religion, and if the 
tenant and his family get the notion that they do 
not need this religion, they have gotten the false 
view of life. If the tenant and his family will but 
faithfully practice the religion of the country 
church they will become better tenants and better 



RELIGION AND FARM LIFE 261 

citizens of their farm community which will surely 
bring to them the prosperity that will lead them 
to land ownership. 

The church is a leveler of classes. If a different 
notion prevails it is not the fault of the church, but 
of men. To get the best out of the business of 
farming one must get in the proper mental state 
towards his wife, his family, his stock, his farm 
and his soil. He must take pride in his home, its 
furnisliings and surroundings, and his entire farm 
with all its belongings. He will do these things 
if he makes religion a part of his farm life. 



CHAPTER XXII 

THE COUNTRY GRAVEYARD 

A STRANGE and gruesome title for a chapter 
in a book upon the business of farming, 
most readers will think or exclaim when their eyes 
rest upon it, and yet the author believes that the 
reader will reach the conclusion ere he finishes 
reading this chapter, that the country graveyard 
has as much of a place in the business of farming 
as has the beautiful surrounding or sanitation of 
the farm. 

We should remember the beautiful sentiment ex- 
pressed in the words, "We pass this way but 
once," and so it is our duty to do everything 
possible to lighten the burdens of our loved ones 
and our fellow man. 

Pleasant and pleasing surroundings make life 
worth while, cultivates a respect for society and 
its laws, instills into our hearts that there is a 
Maker who rules the universe, shapes our destinies 
and our ends. 

Cities are crowded because they are made beau- 
tiful. Broad, well paved and lighted streets, 
parks and cemeteries with the wilds of Nature im- 
proved, aided and polished by the hand of man, 
are an everlasting delight to the eye and a balm 
to our tired and hurt minds. So people love them 
and are willing to undergo any hardship to be close 
to them. 

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THE COUNTRY GRAVEYARD 263 

Though bowed with cruel grief, yet is there not 
a pleasure in being able to lay our loved ones who 
have lived out life's fitful dream in the beautiful, 
well kept, flower laden cemetery, with the knowl- 
edge that, through the years, though we be far 
away, it will always be well cared for! 

Oh I the tragedy and the sadness of the country 
graveyard! A disgrace to the American farmer 
that ought to make him blush with shame. 

There is not a farm community in all this broad 
land of ours but what contains this disgrace. We 
see these yards grown up with weeds and under- 
brush until we can scarcely see through them to 
the tottering tombstone, upon which is inscribed, 
''Sacred to the Memory," a mockery to the dead, 
a stinging disgrace to the living. Is it any wonder 
that men and women fear death, knowing that 
their bodies are to be laid in such neglected 
places? 

The author's parents are sleeping in a beautiful 
city cemetery, although they were pioneers and 
lived their lives upon the farm. A brother and 
sister died more than a half century ago, and were 
laid in a neglected country churchyard. They died 
in early pioneer days when our parents were busy 
clearing the forests and making the wilderness to 
bloom and fruit with the products of the husband- 
man. The struggle our pioneers were compelled 
to undergo led to neglect in many of the things of 
life. So it is not strange that the graveyard was 
neglected. When the last parent died the author 
went back to the ancestral home from which he 
had wandered years before. Those are the times 
when family ties are strengthened and family 



264 THE BUSINESS OF FAEMING 

memories are revived. So the thought of the 
loved ones gone before became uppermost in the 
minds of the living and they thought it would be 
fitting to wander back to the old comitry grave- 
yard where the brother and sister slept, and have 
their remains moved to the beautiful city cemetery 
where our parents were laid to rest. 

But what was the author's sorrow to be brought 
face to face with the awful truth that in this 
neglected country graveyard we could not even 
find the depression of the narrow short mounds un- 
der which had lain for so many years the sleep- 
ing bodies of those who helped make up the family 
circle of our youth, that period the best of our 
lives. 

Not many miles from the author's home is a 
farm that was rescued from the wilderness by a 
pioneer who raised a large family. He and his 
wife, several of his children and a few other rela- 
tives, were laid to rest in a lonely spot upon the 
farm. In the course of years the farm passed into 
the hands of strangers. In passing this farm not 
long since the author saw the tombstones of the 
little family cemetery piled around the last remain- 
ing tree of the forests of pioneer days upon the 
farm, and the mounds covering the sleeping bodies 
of the pioneers had been leveled and turned into 
a part of the adjoining field, and was being cul- 
tivated. What sacrilege! What a thoughtless- 
ness of the living for the dead ! It is no wonder 
that a farm community, dotted with ill kept, un- 
interesting homes, dilapidated, neglected grave- 
yards, are deserted by the young girls and boys. 

If we have no respect for, or remembrance of 



THE COUNTRY GRAVEYARD 265 

the dead, let us at least respect ourselves and 
make our lives and the lives of our loved ones more 
pleasant, and clean up and beautify the country 
graveyards and make them, not only a fitting place 
for the sleeping dead, but places that delight the 
eye. It will greatly assist in making farm life 
worth while. It will give us the spirit of improve- 
ment of home surroundings that will help to solve 
the problem of keeping the girl and boy on the 
farm. 



CHAPTEE XXIII 

HOME BUILDING AND THE FAKM 

MAN is the most pronounced home loving ani- 
mal, for he devotes his greatest energy to 
home building and home adornment. If possessed 
of large means he builds for his home palaces and 
castles "domed and turreted" and surrounded by 
spacious grounds gloriously parked by Nature and 
human hands. If possessed of moderate means 
he builds the average home, pleasing, pleasant and 
of modest design. If his means be meager he con- 
structs the little cottage and adorns it with the 
clinging vine, the simple furnishings and surround- 
ings. In either home he finds the sacred refuge 
of life from the storms without. In the palace or 
most pretentious home he does not always find the 
abiding place of true affections and the sacred 
refuge of rest. Neither does he always find them 
in the humble cottage. But home is his greatest 
solace and comfort. He gives up his life in service 
for it. Take home out of man's life and what is 
left for which it is worthy to fight and strive and 
endure ? The young man and woman in early life 
begin to look out and beyond the vision of their 
childhood's home for their future home vision, and 
home life, and if they catch the vision of home it 
generally is the vision of the palace or more pre- 

266 






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HOME BUILDING 267 

tentious home with the most beautiful surround- 
ings. If their childhood's home is a hovel the 
vision of the home they see in their dreaming is 
not of the hovel kind. 

While we have seen the home instinct so strongly 
developed in the young, that a young man seriously 
injured in the marts of trade piteously pleaded 
that we take him to his childhood's home which 
we found to be nothing but a two roomed hovel, 
reeking with filth and the walls alive with foul 
crawling vermin that dropped from the ceiling 
upon us as our footsteps shook this hovel mis- 
named home, yet we dare say that when this 
young man dreamed of the future home, he would 
have for his own, his dreaming did not picture the 
kind of a home his parents had given him, but was 
that of a palace or the beautiful ones he saw in 
his neighborhood. 

One day at the World 's Fair at Chicago in 1893, 
the author found himself in the great art exhibit 
standing with a large crowd gazing with moistened 
eyes at the simple picture of farm life entitled 
*' Breaking Home Ties." It represented a farm 
home scene with the mother bidding adieu to the 
young man about to leave the farm. The father 
with sad face was waiting with the farm team to 
take him away ; the smaller brother and the farm 
dog were looking on with apparent sorrow. 

After standing for a long time looking through 
tears at this simple picture he turned about and 
saw dozens of men and women with weeping eyes 
and with tear stained cheeks looking at the picture 
as the author had looked. Why the interest and 
tears for a simple picture? It represented the 



268 THE BUSINESS OF FARMING 

life's history of the author and those men and 
women. 

There was a time in the author's life when he 
too stood on the old farm porch, bid mother an 
affectionate adieu, and with her blessing and ad- 
monition set his face towards the city and entered 
its life, and these men and women standing about 
him had at some time in their lives done the same 
thing. 

But why did the author break the home ties of the 
old farm home? He had caught the vision of a 
more beautiful home with better and more pleas- 
ing surroundings than he saw upon the farm, 
which he wished to possess for his manhood's 
home. 

Let us for a while review conditions that obtained 
upon the farm during the early life of the author, 
and which have obtained in the lives of thousands 
of others, and see if we can not find the solution 
of some of the most serious problems of to-day 
that beset the business of farming. 

Upon the farm little attention was paid to home 
building. The country was new, farm machinery 
was crude and undeveloped, muscle and brawn 
were required to clear, ditch, cultivate and im- 
prove the land. Public improvements were a hard 
drain upon the farmer's finances. Price of farm 
produce was low, and the prices of the merchandise 
the farmer required was high. Conditions were 
such that it required long hours of hard work to 
make ends meet. It was the age of brawn in every 
business as the age of improved machinery had 
not been born, so country and city developed 



HOME BUILDING 269 

slowly, even the dress of those engaged in the 
business of farming was so distinctive as to ex- 
cite ridicule. 

This condition of the business of farming threw 
a certain environment about those engaged in it 
that they continued in the same old rut, even when 
conditions changed and greater opportunities were 
possible upon the farm. 

The young man or woman reared under these 
environments, without any education that led 
them out into the delights and possibilities of the 
business, got out enough into the world to see that 
there was another class of men and women en- 
gaged in different business, wearing a more pleas- 
ing dress, possessing beautiful looking homes, and 
apparent prosperous business ; that these men and 
women were leaders of men and women, as law- 
yers, physicians, clergymen, merchant princes, 
etc. They had never heard the merits or possi- 
bilities of the business of farming exalted either 
in home, school or elsewhere. It was not thought 
possible for those on the farm to be as well dressed 
as people in other lines of business, and so the 
business of farming was generally condemned and 
looked upon with ridicule and contempt. Even 
the literature and art of the day portrayed and 
pictured the men, women, and children engaged in 
the business of farming in the most slurring man- 
ner. The written eloquence of the great lawyers 
and statesmen and their pictures in action, was the 
literature and art found in both schoolhouse and 
home. Is it any wonder that the young man upon 
the farm early in his life began to dream of the 



270 THE BUSINESS OF FARMING 

forum or the legislative halls, and longed for the 
day when he would be a great lawyer or a great 
stateman ? 

The business that pays the greatest profit and 
gives the greatest opportunities for home build- 
ing is the business most sought after by our peo- 
ple. In every line of business the people who are 
engaged in it do the things they see their neigh- 
bors do which brings the greatest profit. 

If a farmer produces a certain crop one year 
that pays large returns, all his neighbors imitate 
him the next season and raise the same crop. 
Boys and girls are imitative. They want to imi- 
tate the higher types of men and women, but un- 
less rightly guided too often mistake the higher 
type. They want to do what men and women 
do which seems to them will bring the greatest 
joy and happiness. If when they go to a city 
they scarcely look at the hovel or poorer districts 
where poverty abounds, they see the beautiful 
parked streets with the magnificent residences 
richly furnished within and adorned without. 
And the better dressed men and women only 
impress them, and they immediately begin to 
dream of these and plan to engage in the busi- 
ness that will make such things possible for them 
to acquire. 

As the author was penning these lines his atten- 
tion was called to the newspaper report of a large 
Sundaj'- men's meeting in the Capital City of his 
state. There were fifteen hundred men at this 
meeting. The speaker's subject was the '^ Coun- 
try Boy." The speaker began his remarks by 
asking all the men in the audience who were reared 




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HOME BUILDING 271 

in tlie country to stand up. All stood up but less 
than two hundred. 

Line up the city business and professional men 
of any of our cities and ask them from whence they 
came, the majority will say from the farm. Ask 
them why they left the farm, they will answer, to 
secure the greater opportunity. Ask them if this 
greater opportunity was not out upon the farm, 
and they will answer that if it was, their training 
and education had obscured it, and their vision 
did not catch it, but their education and observa- 
tion pointed it out to them in the city. 

The author obtained his early education in a 
small country town which depended entirely upon 
the country for its support. He went through the 
several grades of its schools and graduated from 
its high school. There never was a time in all his 
schooling in this town, depending for its very ex- 
istence upon the business of farming surrounding 
it, that he ever heard so much as an intimation that 
the business of farming was a desirable one to 
follow. 

But the business of the professions, especially 
that of the law, were being constantly held up as 
the most honorable and the most worthy for which 
the young man should aspire. Is it any wonder 
that he and his country boy associates so easily 
drifted into city life? On his way to school he 
passed the pretentious homes of the city editor, 
merchant, lawyer and doctor, and dreamed of the 
time when he too might be an editor, a merchant, 
lawyer or physician, and occupy such homes which 
seemed to him then as great mansions. 

Those were the days of bad country roads and 



272 THE BUSINESS OF FARMING 

one-half of the year they were almost impassable, 
and as farm homes were generally far apart, the 
isolation of country life was keenly felt. 

But we are now living in an age of changed con- 
ditions. Our farm lands generally are so settled 
up that farm homes dot the landscapes, and most 
every farmer can stand in his doorway and see 
many homes. Our bad roads have become im- 
proved highways. The automobile has eliminated 
distance. The telephone and rural mail brings the 
best of civilization at every farm fireside. Dis- 
tance, isolation, lonesomeness, are eliminated from 
the farm. 

We have already shown that there is not a single 
city convenience but what is available for the farm. 

Electric light, practicable, cheap and substan- 
tial, lights the farmer's home, eliminating the 
drudgery of taking care of dirty, ill smelling, and 
unsatisfactory coal oil lamps. Devices for lifting 
and distributing water about the farm can be ob- 
tained which do the work as cheaply and satisfac- 
torily as any city water system. And if the 
farmer but possesses a spring or flowing well, as 
many do, the hydraulic ram will distribute water 
about his premises practically free of cost. The 
gasoline engine, now so cheap that any farmer 
can afford one, will relieve the labor of pumping 
water and grinding feed for stock, and do a large 
amount of other farm labor that once required 
brawn and long hours of labor to perform. 

An outfit consisting of a vacuum cleaner, dust- 
less mop, fireless cooker, washing machine and 
wringer, a gasoline engine and gasoline iron, all 
costing less than one hundred dollars, can be in- 



HOME BUILDING 273 

stalled in the farm home with which the house wife 
can accomplish twice as much work in half the 
time, and twice as easily as she could herself do 
even with the help of a servant. 

With such an outfit the farm wife can keep her 
household in perfect order, and have much time 
to use as her fancy dictates, and household work 
upon the farm becomes no more irksome than it 
is in the city or village. 

With the great number of labor saving devices 
and perfected machinery now available for every 
farm, and at such prices that every farmer can 
afford to own them, the farmer and his family 
have more spare time than ever before known to 
the farm, so they can spend the extra time in the 
adornment of their home surroundings. The 
beautifully kept lawn, with its cement walks, well 
arranged and cared for shrubbery and flower 
beds, is just as possible for the farmyard as the 
city home. The country garden and orchard, well 
kept, filled with every vegetable and fruit possible 
to grow in the locality where situated, can not only 
be made a source of profit, but an everlasting de- 
light to the senses of sight and taste. 

In fine, the possibilities for home building upon 
the farm are just as great, and at prices within 
the reach of every man engaged in the business, 
as you will find in any city or town. There is no 
longer any excuse to go to town to possess con- 
veniences or escape labor, which have so fre- 
quently been urged in the past for farm desertion. 
And just as sure as the men engaged in the busi- 
ness of farming begin to put these possibilities 
into realities upon the farm, see that the educa- 



274 THE BUSINESS OF FARMING 

tioual institutions to which they send their chil- 
dren to school teach them those things that get 
them interested in nature and farm life, in fine, 
give them the agricultural and domestic science 
training, and that their children are dressed as 
well as finances will justify, then the stream of 
young men and women flowing towards the city 
will be stayed. 

But the farmer must himself get the spirit of 
better farming done under better conditions of 
improved labor saxdng devices and farm machin- 
ery. He must get in love with his soil as well as 
with his family and do the things that will feed it 
and improve it, and then get in touch with the 
better farming methods by which he can grow the 
better and larger crops, in fine, do the intensive 
farming in all its lines that brings the greater 
profit and the better farm living. 

The possibilities of home building and the op- 
portunities for better living and profit were never 
so great upon the farm as now. Make these pos- 
sibilities and opportunities realities, surround the 
farm homes with all the comforts and adornments 
of the city home, and you have solved the ques- 
tion of keeping the boy and girl on the farm. 

Remember that it does not require the mansion 
upon the farm to bring the better living, but the 
modest, simple cottage or bungalow surrounded 
witli the adornments of beautiful lawns set with 
shrubbery, vine and well kept gardens and or- 
chards, and furnished inside with the labor saving 
devices and the comforts and pleasures of good 
household appointments, libraries, and musical 
devices, is enough. The simplest home can be so 



HOME BUILDING 275 

adorned and fumislied as to give the greatest de- 
lights of living. 

But above all do not forget the country church, 
the bettered school and the right social diversions. 
If all these things do not give the better living and 
greater than any found in the city, then there is 
something wrong with the country liver. The men 
or women themselves are not right. The fleeting 
pleasures of the world have so poisoned their 
minds that ^'simple pleasures no longer please." 
''They are joined to idols" and we are forced to 
let them alone, at least until by bitter experience 
they have been made to see their folly. 

Some may ask the question, ''If the farms are 
all occupied with homes, where is there room for 
more?" We have already shown in the chapter 
on Back to the Land that there is yet much room 
for home building, and there is still the greater 
opportunity in our best farming districts for many 
farms are already too large. Reduce the size of 
our farms and do intensive farming of our lands 
which will bring the greater profit. The farmer 
with 160 or more acres can divide his farm into 
eighty acre tracts, give his children the chance 
to make a home upon it which, if farmed inten- 
sively, will yield as great a profit as double the 
acreage found by the old methods. This method 
will make room for many of the children coming 
on into adult life. 

It is conceded that the small farm yields more 
to the acre than the large one. That the farming 
of small tracts of land leads to intensive and bet- 
ter farming and to increased fertility. That the 
small farm oocupied by industrious families is 



276 THE BUSINESS OF FARMING 

the real backbone of any nation, for it not only 
reduces farming to a science, but leads to coopera- 
tion that will uplift the business of farming, and 
will lead to the elimination of the waste long prac- 
ticed upon the farm. In fine, it means to any 
nation that its people will be better fed, better 
clothed, better housed, yea, will have a better life. 

More than one and one-third millions of immi- 
grants came to our shores in the year 1913, and 
nearly a million of these were males. Nearly one- 
half of these men were farmers and farm laborers. 
Yet less than two per cent, of these landed upon 
the farm. The cities swallowed the remainder 
and augmented their congestion of city workers. 
If this condition continues to obtain in the future, 
and the drifting of our own farming class con- 
tinues towards the city, the labor and other prob- 
lems of our cities and country districts will become 
so acute that relief must be obtained in some way. 

The duty of the hour is to demonstrate that the 
opportunity of the farm for home building and 
better living, is as great as can be found in any 
city. 

It is useless to longer sound the warnings of the 
dangers that beset us. It is now time for action. 
There must be some concerted action by and be- 
tween national, state and city governments, rail- 
roads, agricultural or other societies, towards the 
putting into execution of some plan that will re- 
store the equilibrium of proper population be- 
tween cities and farm districts. 

We will never be able to keep all the boys and 
girls upon the farm, yet if we show them the pos- 
sibilities of the farm in all the lines of profit, home 



HOME BUILDING 277 

building, and the things that make up the right 
living, the larger number will not only remain 
upon the farm, but thousands who have gone to the 
cities will return to the farm. 

We have but to show the boys, girls, men and 
women what the farm is capable of doing and the 
readjustment will take care of itself. 



CHAPTER XXIV 

BACK TO THE LAND 

VOLUMES have been written upon this sub- 
ject. Some true and sensible things have 
been said about it, but much that has been written 
gives no practicable suggestions. 

There is no city man or woman who came from 
the farm but what has a yearning to "wander 
back again" to the land to be touched with Na- 
ture's charms. And many men and women who 
never knew country life also yearn to throw off 
the burden of city life for the freer country ex- 
istence. And yet but a small per cent, of this 
dreaming ever becomes a reality. Many who once 
get hold of city or town existence cannot let loose, 
and the probabilities are that many of them would 
make a failure of the business of farming if they 
could loosen their grip on city life and get back 
to the land. 

By instinct man is a social animal and is ever 
seeking to be amused. He delights in stimulation 
and excitement, in the weird, the mystery. This 
trait in man is susceptible to cultivation by mental 
processes. Let his mind run even lightly in that 
direction and he reaches that state where life is 
as a dreary waste, unless he has an opportunity 
to indulge in those things that stimulate and ex- 
cite his many senses. 

278 




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BACK TO THE LAND 279 

It seems that the average American has gone 
amusement mad. His main object in life is the 
insatiate search for amusement. When a man or 
woman allows themselves to be stricken with this 
malady, the peaceful quiet restful life of the farm 
has no power over them. To this life they are 
irretrievably lost. 

The discontent with farm life can in most every 
instance Ije traced to this trait of man and accounts 
in a large measure for the breaking of farm ties. 

The isolation and lonesomeness of farm life in 
these days of telephones, rural mail routes, the 
automobile and an abundance of varied literature, 
have their existence only in the mind, and so can- 
not be responsible for the discontent with farm 
life. We do not have to go to the remote parts 
of the country to find isolation and lonesomeness. 
They are found in the most acute stage in the best 
cities, for where can one find the counterpart to 
the awful isolation and lonesomeness of one in the 
city without friends or money, or without work, a 
business, trade, or profession with which to supply 
the necessaries of life. Yet there are thousands 
of men and women who would rather live in the 
city, endure its galling poverty and distress, so as 
to be near the maddening excitement found on city 
streets, rather than go back to the land and plenty, 
with its quiet and peaceful rest and freedom from 
worry. 

But there are thousands of city people who 
ought to be on the farm and who want to be for 
they know too well that it is a most difficult thing 
to rear and train children properly under city in- 
fluence and environment, for no matter what the 



280 THE BUSINESS OF FAKMING 

home training may be the outside evil influences 
found on every hand in our cities tear down faster 
than we can build up. Our cities are so congested 
with workers that the conditions of labor are such 
that we have vast hordes of the underpaid, and 
underfed, and even where labor in plenty is to be 
obtained it is done under conditions that too often 
leads to overwork. 

The high cost of living lays its galling yoke upon 
the city laboring man and even upon the middle 
merchant or business and professional class, and 
the constant chafing of the yoke makes existence 
such a burden that even hope befriends and ceases 
to be the chief and universal cure for the **ills that 
men endure." 

We should not deceive ourselves in the belief 
that all the misery occasioned by the "heavy 
grind" of life or high cost of living in the city is 
found among our laboring classes. You find it 
largely among the business and professional 
classes. Most of us never know the awful strug- 
gle for bread and even existence, that is constantly 
taking place among these classes. It is easily seen 
among the laboring class, but mth the business or 
professional men and women it is concealed be- 
neath the veneer of prosperity with which this 
class seem to be able to cover themselves and ap- 
pear to the world as prosperous. But we who 
have been able to lift this veneer have seen the 
conditions that would startle, and show that the 
majority of city people are paying an awful pen- 
alty for the privilege of city existence. 

When we see the gray hairs, the wrinkled fore- 



BACK TO THE LAND 281 

head and the sad face of the city men and women 
it too often means that they are bearing the heavy 
burdens of the struggle for bread, and are paying 
too great a penalty for the privilege of city life. 
And these conditions are bound to grow more 
acute in this land of ours because we have almost 
reached the end of newer lands being opened for 
settlement, and our lands now under cultivation 
will enhance in value until they will be owned by 
the wealthier class and so the man without means 
will be unable to obtain land and will be forced to 
endure city existence. 

Then too many city men are the round pegs try- 
ing to fit themselves into the square holes. 
Nearly half the men who are trying to transact 
city business in all branches of trade and the pro- 
fessions are without sufficient ability to perform 
the duties their business requires. The author has 
seen scores of professional men who could not suc- 
cessfully practice their professions and what was 
more distressing would never be able to learn how 
to do so. The same condition obtains in all lines 
of city business and we are willing to admit that 
many of these men could not successfully transact 
the duties required of the business of farming so 
as to be successful. This fact makes it harder to 
advise correctly upon the "back to the farm" 
movement. 

Several propositions are established. There 
are too many people in our cities. 

There are too many city people in distressed 
conditions. The burden of life or the struggle for 
bread is too great for them to bear. 



282 THE BUSINESS OF FARMING 

If these city people could get back to the land 
much of their burdens could be, and would be re- 
lieved. 

To establish these people upon the land does 
not require a large amount of land for each in- 
dividual family. 

A five or ten acre tract of land farmed and 
managed in the proper manner would provide at 
the closest estimate as large an income as many 
of those families have been receiving in the cities, 
and as their expenses in the country would be so 
greatly curtailed they would live better than in 
the city, besides enjoying the other advantages of 
country life. 

There are fine opportunities for money making 
in the farming of small tracts of land near most 
every city. The rearing of poultry, growing of 
small fruits and vegetables, is a most profitable 
business and does not require large tracts of land 
to carry it on. 

There is much land in the eastern, middle, and 
southern states, susceptible of great possibilities 
in the back to the land movement. Many city 
people have made, and are now making good on 
these lands, and have relieved themselves of the 
city grind, and now endure a pleasing existence. 
True they have met with discouragement, and it 
has taken grit and determination to hang on and 
make good, but with courage and work and study, 
most any person can establish themselves upon 
this land and can soon enjoy the glorious privilege 
of country existence, provided they had some 
capital with which to make the start. 

So the hardest problem to solve in this back to 



BACK TO THE LAND 283 

the land movement is securing the requisite capital 
with which to get back. While it does not require 
a large amount of capital, yet the amount neces- 
sary in each individual case, is large to him who 
has no means or can give no security to secure 
the means necessary. There are many who are 
now in position to secure the capital requisite who, 
if they put off the day of getting back to the land, 
may, in the meantime, spend the capital now at 
their command. My advice to such is do not pro- 
crastinate but go at once. 

Every person who has not a sure footing in the 
city, in a business sense, or reaches that stage 
where he sees his city footing slipping away, ought 
to make every effort to get back to the land before 
it is too late, for it is as true as Holy Writ, that 
he who once loses his grip on city life and busi- 
ness, seldom, if ever, gets his grip again. Every 
city is full of men past the middle age of life who 
have lost their grip. Their positions have slipped 
away by reason of age, incompetency, or the 
crowding out process, and they are now members 
of that great army of derelicts upon the sea of 
city business, drifting hither and thither without 
sail or compass, unable to make a safe and secure 
harbor. 

This is the great city tragedy that can only be 
cleared away by landing these derelicts upon the 
smaller farms. And the study and adaptation of 
a plan by which it can be done is the greatest and 
most philanthropic work that can engage any mind 
or capital. For the doing of this thing will re- 
lieve much of the distress and misery of the city, 
and contributes much to the greatness of our 



284 THE BUSINESS OF FARMING 

country, for the man who has once lost hope and 
courage, and can be established back to the land 
where he can regain them, and a pleasing exist- 
ence besides, becomes a valuable citizen, and the 
nation of valuable citizens is the most powerful 
and prosperous. 

Here is a field for the organization of honest 
companies whose purpose is to buy up vast tracts 
of land, divide it up into small tracts, develop a 
scheme by which money can be loaned to settlers 
upon plans similar to those adopted by city Build- 
ing & Loan Associations, who loan money on such 
liberal terms that thousands of city people have 
been enabled to purchase and pay for homes, and 
which loans have always been safe and profitable 
investments to both loaner and purchaser. The 
same thing is being done successfully in Canada 
to-day and is enabling many to get back to the 
land. 

This proposition of getting back to the land is 
suitable and practicable to both sexes. There are 
scores of women to-day who have even gone back 
to the abandoned lands of the eastern states and 
established themselves upon the worn-out soils 
and rescued these soils and brought them back to 
themselves again, and these lands are giving to 
these settlers peace, plenty and a happy exist- 
ence. 

There is scarce a community but what there are 
some opportunities for men and women to get back 
to some portion of the soil ; if it is nothing more 
than a half acre or more, it will do much to relieve 
distress occasioned by the city struggle for bread. 

To get as much as possible of the struggling 



BACK TO THE LAND 285 

hordes of our city back to the land means not only 
that a large portion of our people can 

"Hold fast the golden mean, 

And live contentedly between 

The little and the great, 

And feel not the wants that pinch the poor," 

but will mean so much to our nation, and will help 
to solve so many of the problems that now beset 
us. 

But the financial scheme for supplying funds for 
the back to the land movement must have for its 
basis a long time payment plan, and yet should re- 
quire the yearly payment of interest and a small 
amount of principal. For the first gives hope and 
courage, and the latter induces thrift and economy. 
The city man going back to the farm may have 
had no farm experience and even if he had, con- 
ditions now may be entirely different from what 
they were when he did farm, so time must be 
given for him to get into touch with the real busi- 
ness of farming so as to avoid mistakes and 
hindrances. 

Again no company should attempt to finance a 
back to the land movement without providing for 
distribution of an abundance of sane agricultural 
literature written in plain, easy to understand 
English, and along common sense lines by those 
who have had practical experience in real soil 
building, soil maintenance and crop growing, for 
false undigested theoretically written farm knowl- 
edge would do vast harm to the raw recruit upon 
the land. 

If farm experts of the right sort could be fur- 



286 THE BUSINESS OF FARMING 

nishecl it would be a mighty aid, for there is noth- 
ing like the personal touch in this matter of teach- 
ing the business of farming. 

Generally the first question asked in this back 
to the land movement is, Where shall we go? We 
have already stated that there are many oppor- 
tunities to be found in most every section of our 
country, but the best and most promising for the 
man not afraid of work and study is to be found 
in northern Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan and 
parts of Virginia. While the lands found in these 
sections are mostly *'cut over" lands, yet the soil 
is rich and produces crops in abundance and the 
lands are cheap. There are vast tracts of land 
in Virginia covered with timber that is now being 
cut off by large milling companies that can be pur- 
chased at from ten to twelve dollars per acre. 
These lands are close to railroads, excellent high- 
ways and markets. The climate is ideal, rainfall 
is ample and the soil is good and suitable for fruit 
and alfalfa growing, in fine, for most any crop. 
And there are great possibilities even in the worn 
soil districts of the east, for the rebuilding of worn 
soil is not a difficult problem. And our southland 
should not be overlooked. In fine, the supply of 
lands for this back to the land movement are ample 
for a large population if we but look about us for 
them. The main problem is to finance the move- 
ment and get the stream moving back from the 
city, and safeguard it with the education and train- 
ing, and the helping hand that will prevent the 
stream from turning back again towards the city. 

It will not turn back if those who get back to 
the land can once get established, for no sane man 



BACK TO THE LAND 287 

or woman wlio once escapes the city grind and 
struggle for bread and becomes attached to the 
soil would ever want to become entangled in its 
chafing meshes again. 

The government at Washington is making the 
effort to study out and put into execution a plan 
of farm credits which will help to supply the req- 
uisite capital to our farmers and it is to be hoped 
it will in a measure at least, also solve the problem 
of financing this back to the land movement. 

A pleasing experience of a young man and his 
wife who got back to the land came under the 
author's observation during the last three years, 
the reciting of which may give the reader courage 
and hope if he or she is contemplating the joining 
of this movement. 

Five years ago a girl friend of the author, 
reared in the country, married a city young man 
who knew nothing of country life from experi- 
ence. They became residents of a large city, he 
being in the employ of a mercantile agency. Two 
years of city married life too plainly told them 
that the city struggle for bread would be difficult, 
and if they ever intended to secure a firm footing 
in life, the farm was the place to secure it. They 
were able to secure funds sufficient to buy a small 
farm of about sixty acres of worn-out soil situated 
in southern Indiana. The place had been so neg- 
lected that it was almost an abandoned farm, both 
as to buildings and land. They made the start, 
bought the land and began the business of farming. 
The young wife visited the author a short time 
ago and she told of their struggles in their new 
business of farming. How the vicissitudes of dry 



288 THE BUSINESS OF FARMING 

weather, insect pest, worn soil, lack of money to 
secure help, and inexperience had presented prob- 
lems for them to solve that tested their courage 
and almost overwhelmed them. Her husband 
knew nothing about handling farm tools and 
horses, and she laughingly told how she had ridden 
the horse astride, hitched to the plow, with her 
husband a hold of the plow handles guiding the 
plow, and she all the time fearful some one would 
see them in this uncommon situation. But this 
young couple had grit; they stuck, and with the 
enthusiasm of a young child she told how they had 
surmounted all discouragements and had made 
them a pleasant home and had the comforts of life 
with the freedom of country life and free from the 
uncertainties of city life. She said they were hap- 
pier and freer from care than they had ever been 
and would not exchange their present condition 
for the city life again. That each day upon their 
little farm their difficult problems were becoming 
less difficult. Their farai was being built up, and 
was reciprocating for the care given it. And while 
the author was writing this little story about the 
young couple a letter came from the wife stating 
that they were never more intensely interested in 
farm life than now, and that her husband was con- 
stantly reading farm books and that they were 
* * still the happy country kids. ' ' 

This little story also shows that many city peo- 
ple can get back to the farm if they want to get 
back, and that they can stay on the farm when they 
do get back if they really want to stay. 

But every one who is contemplating getting back 
to the land must remember that if he or she 



BACK TO THE LAND 289 

realizes their dream, it means that they must pos- 
sess a faith, a hope, a courage that brooks every 
discouragement, for discouragements will come 
thick and fast, but the man or woman with the 
grip that never loosens will achieve the success of 
a competency, and a better living amid peaceful 
and pleasing surroundings and an uplifting en- 
vironment. 

It is said that people do not go back to the land, 
for fear of failure and of land sharks, or the real 
estate agent who sells worthless land above its 
value. The pitfalls of both these reasons can be 
avoided, and our agriculture departments in both 
state and nation can furnish the remedies. And 
as we have already said, the right sort of litera- 
ture and the expert government agent can show 
how to farm or how to avoid the failures. 

The good and the bad lands can be listed and 
brought to the attention of the would be settlers, 
but of course there will be failures in spite of every 
precaution. And this is true of any business. 
We can only take the steps that will reduce the 
failure and other hindrances to the minimum. 

The author recently read this statement from a 
writer upon the back to the land movement. ' ' Un- 
less you are satisfied to be just an ordinary com- 
mon every day man and willing to mingle with 
that class of people for the rest of your life, I 
certainly advise you to keep out of a pair of plow 
handles. I never knew a millionaire farmer in 
my life." And then he went on and asked the 
questions along this line. How many farmers did 
you ever know who took trips to Europe, or the 
seaside, played golf, or stopped at a high price 



290 THE BUSINESS OF FARMING 

hotel, or, in fine, ever participated in the pleasures 
of the rich? And well might we ask, how many 
city people do these things ! For it is a fact that 
three-fourths of the city people are engaged in a 
fearful struggle for bread, who never do or never 
can enjoy the so called pleasures of the rich, and 
even in their condition they are a thousand times 
better off that they are not able to do so. 

We have already shown that the trouble with 
too many people is they think of nothing else but 
pleasure seeking. They forget that our mission in 
this world is one of service. That God intended 
that the most of us should be of the common herd 
for, as Lincoln said, he made so many of just plain 
common people. 

If we would just adjust our mental state along 
the right lines we would know that there is more 
genuine pleasure and joy in living found right 
among the common every day man upon the farm 
than in the city, and the author would rather live 
with, and be one of the common every day men, 
whether situated in the city or country than to be 
one of, and live with the idle rich that flitter hither 
and thither in search of a happiness they do not 
find, and can never find in the life they are living. 

Riches never have, and never will be the means 
of securing happiness, for happiness is largely a 
mental state. We must adjust our minds right 
before we are first in position to secure it. Then 
having got into the right mental state, we will find 
it in simple living and in a *' conscience clear, a 
mind at ease, and simple pleasures that always 
please." Add to this plenty of work amid pleas- 
ant surroundings, especially the surroundings that 



BACK TO THE LAND 291 

partake of the business of farming, with a suffi- 
cient wage, and with the idea impressed upon 
our minds that our lives should be lives of service, 
we will then find ourselves better off for mingling 
with the common every day men and women, and 
thank God that we are of the common people. 

The author has lived in the rich corn belt of 
Indiana all of the fifty-seven years of his life. He 
was born on a pioneer farm that had only been set- 
tled for fifteen years before his birth. He has ever 
mingled with the farming class and has known the 
financial status of hundreds of farmers. He 
knows how the farmers of the corn belt are pros- 
pering. He knows of scores of farmers who were 
worth from twenty-five to one hundred and fifty 
thousand dollars, and he knows that the vast ma- 
jority of these farmers of our best lands possess a 
competence, are better housed, fed, and dressed, 
and have greater opportunities for possessing hap- 
piness than you find in the city. 

He is firm in the faith that the greater oppor- 
tunity to find peace, plenty and happiness, is to 
be found on the farm. He concedes that many will 
not be able to find it there, neither will they likely 
find it in the city. 

After all that you can say upon this subject it 
resolves itself up to the man or woman. No one 
can tell you how to get back to the land so that 
you can just go out and lay your hand upon the 
opportunity of better living and just stop there. 
You are still the architects of your own fortune. 
The way may be laid out before you so you can 
see clearly down the road to the reality beyond, 
but you must go down the road yourself and pos- 



292 THE BUSINESS OF FARMING 

sess it. And you may find the road long and 
dusty. If you have not the qualities that achieve 
and possess, you will surely succumb to discour- 
agement and fall by the wayside. But the fight- 
ing man or woman will achieve and possess. 



